HappyDays

So you're saying in this game we should have done exactly that?

Keon Coleman is a natural Gabe Davis replacement and a good fit for Allen's style.

There have been several times that coaches have gone for 2 to win a game instead of 1 for a tie. Not sure about this exact scenario though. I would bet analytics encourages going for 2 there. But personally I just go off the flow of the game, and in this scenario it was obvious to me that the Eagles were going to drive for a FG and they have an almost automatic kicker, so by kicking the XP we basically forced the game into OT. So the question is do you go for OT or do you go for the win from the 2 yard line? This was not the worst decision McDermott made in the game by any means, but it was part of a pattern in those final minutes of him inexplicably trusting his defense to get a stop instead of trusting his offense which was on fire to make one play and win the game.

Yes that's the risk. You accept a very likely win or a very likely loss. Instead of what we did which was almost guarantee OT considering how poor the defense had been up to that point. A FG drive by the Eagles was the most likely outcome by far. We could have had one play from the 2 yard line to almost certainly win the game... Yes it's absolutely a conversation at least worth having.

McDermott's excuse for kneeling it down after this one was the rain... I mean how clueless can you be? At what point in this game did the rain slow our offense down? Also not enough discussion has been devoted to him kicking the XP after our go ahead TD (instead of going for 2 to make it a 4 point game) and not going for it on 4th and 6 in OT. Our defense hadn't been stopping the Eagles offense at all. I usually lean conservative, but this is the exact type of game scenario where you have to let your offense win the game for you. Three separate occasions in the final minutes where he inexplicably trusted our defense over our offense - kick the XP instead of going for 2, kneel down with 20 seconds left, kick a FG instead of going for it on 4th and 6. And we will have to win multiple consecutive games like this to ever win in the playoffs and win a Super Bowl! What has McDermott ever shown to make us think he can ever lead the team to do that?

I believe there was a team a couple years ago that quickly drove down for a FG in a tightly contested AFC divisional game. I believe they had somewhere between 12 and 14 seconds left. If only McDermott had seen this game maybe he would have known better!

I agree he's better than Tyrod because he takes risks that Tyrod never took. I meant it in the sense of Tyrod never made tight window throws, it just wasn't in his nature. But he threw a pretty deep ball and obviously had mobility. Ultimately though you need an absolutely stacked team around a QB like that to go the distance. The Eagles to their credit have done it.

2015 Tyrod Taylor with more willingness to take risks IMO

I time stamped it to the exact point in the video. It goes until 7:30. It's mind blowing. The exact same spot on the field over and over and over again, and we never adjusted. Great breakdown by Dan Orlovsky. Kind of off topic, but Dan Orlovsky is the only person on this panel that has a clue. I feel bad for him, putting so much work in while his coworkers make fools of themselves. Take it from me and don't bother watching anything before the time stamp or after 7:30.

Take that breakdown with a big grain of salt. Erik is a huge Gabe Davis defender and has regularly touted him as an above average WR2. Erik has a bad habit of posting supposed play comparisons where the "similar" plays actually feature entirely different defensive coverages that change the discussion, which is the case here. It's annoying because he clearly understands football pretty well, but defending his position always has to come before analyzing plays objectively. I don't know why this is even controversial. Tony Romo explained it. I saw a clip of Michael Irvin talking about it. Diggs was shown on the sidelines animatedly talking to Davis while Davis listened with a frustrated look on his face. It's extremely clear that he didn't do his job on that play. WR option routes always have an option built in for cover 0 blitz. Davis never looked to see if a blitz was coming so he ran his route normally. CB inside/outside leverage only matters if a safety is in the area. With no safety there the CB can't possibly stop Davis from running straight forward into green grass without committing a defensive penalty. That is why the option is built in, to give the QB the easiest possible throw in the face of instant pressure. Davis blew it.

What I hate most about this coaching staff and front office is that they have managed to convince some percentage of the fan base that Allen is anything less than elite.

To put an end to this ridiculous discussion you've hijacked my thread over - Diggs played 87 of 95 snaps yesterday. I believe that would rank among his highest single game snap shares since joining the team. Anyone questioning Diggs' mentality or desire to win is flat out trolling.

I do know, because Beane made it a point to say publicly several times that he couldn't afford Hopkins. Nevermind that he has wasted a fortune on underperforming defensive linemen and small WRs. He made sure to let us know failing to sign Hopkins wasn't his fault.

Lol Mahomes literally threw an awful INT against the Eagles last week while in the red zone. Much worse than Allen's. Mahomes also led his team to zero 2nd half points. Hopefully next time Allen will score zero 2nd half points while also throwing 0 INTs in the 2nd half, so that losers online can't make dumb criticisms of an all-time performance.

Jordan Mailata was dumbstruck at how bad this play call was in his post-game interview:

Your argument falls apart when you realize that we lost 3 games this year to teams that we are CLEARLY more talented than. CLEARLY - Jets, Pats, and Broncos. Jags I would say maybe equal talent? But I also think Josh is at least two full tiers higher than Lawrence as a QB so to me that gives us a slight edge over them. For argument's sake we'll call it a wash. Bengals are (were, before Burrow's injury) slightly more talented, and Eagles are moderately more talented. So putting the discussion about point differential aside, we have a team that is only 6-3 against teams they are clearly MORE talented than. We are then 0-3 against teams that have equal or greater talent than us. How again is this an argument in favor of McDermott? I think you've lost the plot a bit here by pulling in teams like the Ravens and 49ers who we haven't even played. Our record compared to our actual schedule is clearly well below par. And yeah that is obviously a coaching issue. I mean how many teams ahead of us in the AFC standings are clearly more talented than us? Maybe just the Ravens and not even by a landslide? The truth is we are lagging far behind most of the conference in coaching, not in talent.

We'd probably be 9-3 at worst to be honest. And just about guaranteed a playoff spot in a conference with no clear dominant team. Still in the running for the #1 seed. At the very least we would have beaten the Broncos and Patriots with another coach. I would wager at least 1 win out of the other 3 losses too. The team has flaws outside of McDermott, clearly. But he exacerbates them. That is undeniable. It's not like we're talking nebulous coaching prowess here, there are distinct and specific moments that we can point to where McDermott personally failed his team in each of our losses this year.

Darius Slay knows what's up:

I think .500 with an elite QB is as bad as it gets to be honest. That's not me being emotional, it should just be the normal standard. I mean it just doesn't happen in the modern era. Staley is the only coach you mentioned that has a QB even approaching Josh Allen. And FWIW I agree Staley is one of the few coaches that I would definitively say is worse than McDermott, for the same reason just on a worse scale. Bowles is up there for sure. Ditto for Rivera. McDaniels before he got fired. Other than that... I can't see any distinct advantages that McDermott gives us over any other head coach in the league.

What other active head coaches would have a Josh Allen led team at .500 this late in the season? I mean that has to be the absolute floor of what even a replacement level head coach would accomplish.

No it wasn't just two players "making a call." Choice routes are very specifically designed in advance to go one way based on the defensive call. On an all out blitz the WR is supposed to go inside. That's why Josh threw it there as soon as he saw the blitz. Romo explained this during the game... And then the broadcast showed Diggs explaining it to a frustrated Davis on the sideline... This was a case of a player that is known for in-game focus issues losing focus, and costing his team a game winning TD as a result.

Oh I am definitely not blaming or scapegoating Diggs for anything that has gone wrong this season. I just haven't seen anybody talking about what I believe to be a real drop off in his level of play this year. I don't think his mindset or work ethic has changed in the slightest. But he's going to be 30 years old in 3 days... I worry that he may have crested the hill earlier this year and is now descending.

It's crazy how often we have opposing players post-game talking about how easy it was to read our play calls at the end of games in high leverage situations.

Yeah it's something I've been thinking about since the London game, but the last two weeks in particular are what led me to create this thread. I just don't see anybody talking about it which is weird. From 2020 to 2022 I was confident saying he was a top 5 WR in football. This year it feels a little off.

I will probably get flamed for this thread, but here goes - can we have a real conversation about Diggs' drop off this year? He has not been his usual special self since the London game. He's dropped a bunch of passes recently and now has two INTs on the year that were ripped out of his hands. I miss the days when Diggs was putting CBs like Marshon Lattimore and Jalen Ramsey on skates. This year he is getting locked down pretty easily by true #1 CBs. I mean just to be clear Diggs is far from our biggest problem on offense, but when the ancillary weapons are so below average you really need your #1 guy to be at the top of the elite tier and Diggs just hasn't been that guy this year. I worry that he is reaching that age where WRs start to hit a wall, and once it starts it can get bad fast. Flame away.