HappyDays

I criticized Edmunds the past couple years but he has clearly become an invaluable member of the defense. Of course he makes mistakes. I watched the highest paid MLB in league history flub an easy sack on 3rd down yesterday which may have cost his team the game. If perfection is your standard you'll never be happy. As far as doing his 1/11 Edmunds has done exactly what he's asked to do. No brainer re-signing IMO.

The NFL has changed drastically just in the last 5 years. You can't win without being aggressive anymore. The Patriots method of winning during their dynasty wouldn't work in the Allen/Mahomes era, I truly believe that. I'm fine if Dorsey wants to call more run plays when we're winning to chew up clock. But I don't want Allen passing up deep reads because he's decided it's time to go into a shell. The coaches dictate the aggressiveness with their play calls. Allen's job is to execute the play according to the reads.

The fumble TD was 100% on him, he misread the blitz both pre- and post-snap and then didn't control the ball when going to the ground. Huge mistake that could have cost us the game. I still contend that we should have scored close to 50 points in this game because of Allen's abilities.

I suspect we had our RBs blocking for most of the game. The Dolphins blitzed us on 52.2% of dropbacks. We kept extra blockers as much as we could. Personally I would like to see more designed passes to Cook, I'm not sure why that element has been completely missing from our offense.

We don't know what the read was. It could be that Allen is supposed to throw the deep ball in 1v1 no matter what. It happened enough times in this game that I have to think that is the case. My point is that if Brown just finishes his route no one would be sitting here today saying Allen forced the throw. Every decision looks stupid when it doesn't work.

My issue with this mindset is that a 17 point lead in the 2nd quarter isn't enough to completely take your foot off the gas pedal. There are always shorter options available on deep completions. But if Allen's read tells him the deep throw is there, he's going to take it. This wasn't like the interception in the Bears game where he forced a throw into double coverage. If John Brown finished his route either a deep completion was there to be had or they would move on to 2nd and 10. And then none of us would be sitting here talking about Allen forcing the throw. Maybe on Shakir's deep pass that he dropped there were shorter options available but everyone seems to agree Allen made a good read there despite that also being a situation where we were up 17 points. Ultimately the receiver has to hold up his end of the bargain too. I don't ever want Allen walking up to the line with the mindset of "I don't trust that my guy is going to make the play that is there." When that's his mindset is career is over. Instead of asking Allen to change his entire style we should probably just get receivers that can run downfield routes and catch the ball when it hits their hands. That's my take on it. This whole "why doesn't Allen check the ball down more?" narrative that has popped up this year is, to me, an excuse people use instead of acknowledging the real problem which is that our pass catchers just haven't been good enough this year. And that's how you end up with two past their prime off-the-street WRs making critical mistakes in a playoff game that lead to turnovers. And we have a great counterexample of this point from the games this weekend - the Chargers went up 27-0 and tried dinking and dunking their way to victory. That strategy allowed an inferior opponent to get back into the game and win.

That's how progressions work... People say "take what the defense gives you" without understanding what it means. Today the Dolphins gave us deep throws. I'm not disappointed that we took the available throws, I'm disappointed that 3 on-target deep passes hit the ground. Dorsey would be wise to put in some more blitz beating concepts when we face the Dolphins specifically because this is how they play us, but we're not likely to face anything nearly that aggressive the rest of the way through. And you can see why - the Dolphins strategy should have cost them close to 50 points. That isn't really a sustainable strategy and we didn't have the wrong counter, it's just that we shot ourselves in the foot too many times.

I don't think that was it at all. Allen just follows his reads. Most defenses don't play us like the Dolphins did today, they were in feast or famine mode on every play so our offense matched that style. If Allen's read tells him to take the deep shot against cover 0 then that is what he's going to do. I saw a next gen stat that said he threw 11 deep balls against the blitz today. 4 were completed. 3 of those by my recollection hit the receiver's hands before hitting the ground. If just 2 of those were instead caught we probably score 10-14 more points. I don't think Allen was putting on a show. He was making the throw that the coverage told him to.

The Dolphins defensive gameplan dictated that we throw the ball deep a lot. The problem is three deep throws bounced off the hands of Davis, Diggs, and Shakir, and on another one John Brown stopped running his route and it got picked. That's too many missed opportunities. We honestly should have scored like 50 points in this game and that's only because of Allen's arm talent.

Come on man. A ball that hit his intended WR in the chest and bounced in the air he was "directly involved" with? That's total nonsense. The first interception is a little ambiguous although Tony Romo seemed confident that John Brown was to blame.

I wouldn't. New OT rules mean both teams get the ball now matter what and you have the best FG kicker of all time on your side. Don't bet it all on one play with this awful collection of red zone talent.

Did you watch the game or the stat sheet?

That defensive drive makes it even more frustrating that they gave the Bengals defense a free TD. Ravens D has mostly shut the Bengals down, they just needed their offense to not screw it up for them.

If I was a coach I would tell my special teams don't even try to block the punt. The risk isn't worth it. There's no way of avoiding a hit like that unless you don't even try to block it.

The Ravens outsmarted themselves. All you have to do is run straight forward 3 times and walk away with a 3-7 point lead. Instead they have the QB loosely hold the football over a big pile of defensive players while two full yards from the endzone. It's not just a flukey play, they earned it.

It's been a bad year for former Bills OCs

-4 points really

If you're the Chiefs I think you'd rather see the Jags than the Ravens, right? The Ravens have the personnel to limit total possessions and cover KC's receivers. Especially if Lamar Jackson makes it back that becomes a scary matchup for them IMO.

The Ravens threw a bomb on 3rd and short? In this economy?

Man that turf is awful. The NFLPA needs to force them to get rid of it.

Wow I'll be honest I didn't think the Ravens had a single explosive pass play in their bag tonight. Apparently the Bengals didn't believe it either.

I still can't believe Roquan Smith flubbed an easy 3rd down sack earlier. Dead to rights and just ran right by him.

Why don't they ever double him?

That's such an undisciplined rush. Burrow isn't that elusive, square up and tackle him the right way.

After today I'm more convinced that trading for Hopkins is a no-brainer. Shakir, Diggs, and Davis all had deep throws fall to the ground after hitting their hands. Put Hopkins in that role and watch this offense explode.