HappyDays

Mahomes actually made a big mistake on the last drive, Romo showed it, which directly led to them not scoring a TD. The difference is he has other stars on his team stepping up and making exceptional plays. So far no one other than Lamar has made an exceptional play for the Ravens.

As usual it is a game of elite players. Mahomes, Kelce, and Jones are individually better than any player the Ravens have. Lamar is the closest they have. The Ravens have a better overall team but the Chiefs have more stars.

My new troll bit is every time someone says "What's Josh supposed to do, catch his own passes??" I'm going to post a gif of that play.

LMAO

For sure, all the elements make it work. Kelce's own abilities and toughness, Mahomes' ball placement, Reid's use of rub routes to get him open even against bracketed coverage.

One area Andy Reid has been brutally bad this year is 3rd or 4th and short. He almost never puts the ball in Mahomes' hands. The best thing the Ravens defense does is stop the run... How do you just run right at them like that? After the incredible plays #15 and #87 have been making?

The Ravens have no plan for Kelce. To be fair nobody does.

Lions don't have a prayer of beating the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. Go 49ers.

I don't really blame Lamar there. His blindside got blown up. It is just that the Chiefs players are all stepping up, like they do every year.

Every single player on the Chiefs plays at their absolute best in the playoffs. It's uncanny.

Discussion starts here:

Mahomes has been perfect in this game.

They weren't trying to sack him, just playing contain. Which is probably the smart move. But Kelce is the GOAT. What are you gonna do?

They do this every year. Their defense has risen above their regular season play every year since Spagnuolo was hired. Their offense is doing it this year. Elite coaching wins playoff games.

Reid is still the GOAT, man. The 1st play of the drive, Mahomes has basically a high/low read but the low is all the way over by the sideline while Rice is sitting inside the hashes. As soon as the defender moves to cover the low, Rice has all that space in front of him.

Excellent drive. Make those defensive adjustments and keep these punks out of the Super Bowl.

Jackson has to be better than that. Looks like he had a couple pass catchers open there.

Probably more complicated than this, but why not double Kelce with a safety and a LB? I never see teams try this. Make literally anybody else on the offense beat you.

That's an insane catch. At no point on that route was Kelce open. There's simply nothing Hamilton could have done better there.

That's a flat out drop.

Sure, comfortable. I'm glad our discussion once again turned into a semantics game.

I'm just saying there is a reason Hamlin got the ball there. I don't believe it was a matter of picking the best football player for the situation. You're mistaking what I mean when I say play it safe. I actually think McDermott's 4th down decision making and that sort of thing is as aggressive as it should be. It's more about his gameplans, the players he chooses to start, the players he chooses to rely on in critical moments. It is those high level situations where I think he plays it safe to the detriment of the team. Hiring Brady without even trying to do better is a good example of this.

I think in McDermott's own way that was playing it safe. Giving Hamlin of all people the ball in that moment, I bet McDermott thought that it felt like destiny.

One thing I will say in Beane's defense on this is that every GM has these misses. Just look at the Chiefs under Brett Veach. They used a 1st round pick on a RB which is a cardinal sin of modern football, and worse that RB didn't even turn out to be a good player. This past offseason they also failed to sign Hopkins, instead choosing to give out a massive contract to a RT which again is a cardinal sin, and again the RT didn't turn out to be a good player. These two awful mistakes could have sunk the team. But the Chiefs happen to also have an elite coaching staff, so they have more than overcome it. Or look at the Eagles. Most people consider Howie Roseman to be the best GM in football. But his team was undone late in the season and then in the playoffs because of poor coaching. So I guess looking at the totality of Beane's work in recent years I think overall it is actually pretty good relative to other Super Bowl contenders. Coaching, especially in the playoffs, is where we are seeing a big discrepancy between us and the other contenders IMO.

I hate this. I don't necessarily hate that Brady got the job. But I hate that the team didn't even attempt to complete a full and exhaustive search. We're just running it back. McDermott loves playing it safe. It's what holds him back as a coach more than anything.