HappyDays

Bengals and Chiefs rookie CBs are both making some plays.

Mahomes is choking this one away. Would have been nice of him to do that for us last year.

I had a dream that we drafted a press CB in the 1st round.

Mahomes missed open throws on 2nd and 3rd down.

Throwing the ball downfield in short yardage situations works when your receiver catches the ball. Hmm.

Andy Reid has coached for 20 years and still hasn't figured out how to use timeouts in the playoffs.

You want to see what Mahomes looks like with the OL Allen had last week? Go watch his Super Bowl against the Bucs. The Chiefs made it a point to fix the problem that offseason. Will Brandon Beane?

When I watch other defenses in the playoffs I see creative pass rush and coverage schemes. Our defense is not creative. We just cross our fingers the opposing offense makes a mistake instead of trying to create mistakes. Same thing on the offensive side. Our offense last week was runs from shotgun or bombs. No rhythm, no creativity, no scheming up mismatches. The more playoff games I watch the less confident I become this coaching staff can get us over the hump. I haven't been this down on the Bills in a long time.

Bengals D is keeping them in this, but they're toast if the OL can't figure it out. Every offense becomes dysfunctional when there's a jailbreak on every play. It's giving me deja vu.

Honestly I think the Eagles will destroy whatever team comes out of this one.

The Chiefs aren't giving free releases to their receivers. Not that that's related to anything that happened 8 days ago.

I will say though I think a lot of this is because of coaching, not talent. The handling of Elam all year has been baffling. When he was drafted a lot of Bills fans questioned the pick because we never play press man. My rationalization of the pick at that time was that it meant McDermott/Frazier planned to diversify their coverage packages which I took to be a good thing. But nope... They still constantly backed their corners 10 yards off the LOS and played a safe but below average starter in Dane Jackson instead of taking the high risk/high reward route, and predictably that defensive philosophy once again got taken to school in the playoffs. Every time I've watched Elam this year I've been impressed. Perfect, no, but he looks like he belongs. He just about shut down Tyreek Hill. How many other CBs can say that? He looks like a ball hawk too which is a skill set this defense has really missed since Tre went down last year. It's arguable we lose the Chiefs game and the wildcard Dolphins game if Elam isn't on the field. But for some reason McDermott/Frazier are terrified of mistakes to the point that they made him a healthy scratch behind washed up Xavier Rhodes at one point. So to me that is not an issue of talent evaluation, it's the coaches doing a horrible job developing their 1st round pick and using his skill set appropriately. And I think you can point to a similar issue for Cook and Shakir.

Parham gave up 55 pressures this year, the 2nd most of any OL in the league. I have no idea why he made the all rookie team, maybe just because he started all year and other rookie guards didn't? Bernard looks like a bust of a pick after just one season if we're being honest but I don't know that Parham would have been any better.

My take on it is that Ben Johnson looks like the NFL's next offensive genius, on the same level as Andy Reid and Kyle Shanahan. I believe he will get his shot as a head coach after this coming season. If we have a similar disappointing playoff result next year I would not be shy about moving on from this regime and get the upstart young offensive genius in the building. Allen will be entering his age 28 season in 2024 so there is plenty of time for an offensive minded coach to get him a Super Bowl. The clock is ticking on Allen's career. If this regime can't even sniff a Super Bowl appearance after 4 years of elite QB play that is reason enough to move on IMO.

There is something to this. Drafting Oliver, forcing Epenesa to lose weight, and now Bernard. They undervalue size on defense. You look at the Eagles front 7 and it is all massive human beings. I don't care how good your OL is, eventually they are going to get worn out having to try and move those guys over and over again. Especially late in the season when everyone is already worn out to begin with. No wonder every year our defense is getting beat up by physical teams in the playoffs.

I think we mismanaged all of our rookies this year. We drafted a press man CB and never played press man. We drafted a pass catching RB and never threw him the ball. We drafted a blitzing LB and never blitzed him. We drafted a slot WR and refused to give him playing time even after Crowder's injury, when defenses were practically begging us to throw the ball underneath. There was a major disconnect between our front office and coaching staff. Beane made picks for an aggressive defense and a rhythm offense, and then the respective coaches of those units did the exact opposite.

Last year I had a lot of optimism because the problems on the team seemed so obvious and fixable, plus Gabe Davis looked like he had broken out as a legit #2 WR. This year I think we have a lot of problems with few resources to solve them, and we don't even look close to being in tier 1 of the NFL. So this year's loss no question was much worse.

I'm in on DeAndre Hopkins, no question. If not him trade for Brandin Cooks or sign OBJ. I agree they can't go into 2023 with the only #2 WR options as Davis and a rookie. Still I would rather they also trade back from pick 27. All of the mocks I've looked at have a lot of DBs and DL going in that range. I'm good on those positions. If there isn't a WR or LT sticking out just trade back until the value meets the need.

I think this is finally the year Beane should consider trading back in the 1st round. Late 20s is kind of no man's land IMO. Pick up another top 100 pick and restock the offense with as many players as possible.

No. His contract is fully guaranteed next year so might as well bring him back. He is still a solid starter even though he's underwhelming as a top 10 pick. His pectoral injury down the stretch clearly affected him. He is probably the best candidate on the roster for having a breakout season next year. I'd rather take those odds, slight as they may be, than get a meaningless 4th round pick while creating another hole on the roster.

This is inexcusable: Frazier's defense is great in the regular season but it is not built for playoff football. Might be time to get a new voice in the room

No I think good offenses have learned our checks. Too many times the Bengals had an OL pulling and running straight at Taron Johnson. I love Taron but that is a losing matchup every time. That's how they gashed us in the run better than any other team they've faced this year. Obviously better talent helps but we were straight up out-schemed by their offense.

It was the Jags game last year without the 3 turnovers and with a much better offense on the other side. Or for another example watch Mahomes against the Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Any offense becomes dysfunctional when the OL is getting beaten that badly on most plays. Another thing that frustrates me about this article is it made me realize how stale our defense has become. Frazier's scheme has gotten figured out and easy to counter. Lou Anurumo's versatile scheme had us reeling all game long. Playoff games are won in the trenches and in coaching. We were totally outmatched in both on offense and defense.

Our offense had the same issues against Cincinnati that it's had for weeks, Allen just wasn't able to pull off enough magic to hide the issues this time. Immediate jailbreaks on the OL, a refusal to get our pass catching RBs intentionally involved, a WR dropping a pass on a key 3rd down. You can get away with that stuff against an inferior opponent and rally at the end to win. Against a championship contender it sinks you early. In this era of football you have to be able to win a shootout occasionally, especially with a defense as injured as ours was. No excuses for the offense. It collapsed in the biggest moment of the season.

The difference is in years past he has openly admitted the team's problems. After the Houston playoff loss he said we didn't have enough weapons around Josh. Two years ago he called out the TE room. Last year he said we didn't do a good enough job getting to the opposing QB. This year he didn't point out anything that needs to improve. Just said the current players went through some stuff and that was that. This team needs some major changes to get to championship level and I'm not sure Beane has a plan of how to get there. We are stuck in the 2nd class of the NFL if he can't figure it out.