HappyDays

And by the way I'm not denigrating Lamar (I know you're not saying that I am). I agree he has had a special season that usually would be an MVP year. Just like Allen in 2020 would usually have been MVP but got edged out by Rodgers having a truly special regular season. This year Allen is having that truly special season and it deserves to be recognized as such. The historical heights he's taken this offense to, the records he's broken, the negative plays he's avoided, all with what neutral observers consider to be an average at best supporting cast; it's one of the all-time best QB seasons IMO. Not in total production for a number of reasons, but in value added.

You know what I made the mistake of trusting a video I watched and not checking my work. Lamar is responsible for 70.8% of his team's production, Allen is responsible for 73.0% of his. A small difference but not enough to matter. Like I said it is two MVP type performances. I still stand by everything else I said about their respective supporting cast and the value they add to their team.

I mean this logic seems pretty flimsy when you consider that there have been two teams this millennium that have dominated the Super Bowl conversation in their respective eras. I don't think the Patriots and Chiefs just happened to win more coin flips. Personally I think it boils down to elite coaching and elite QB play in high-leverage moments. The formula for a dynasty is established. The problem is that we only have half of that formula.

Yeah but that's why I mentioned snap counts specifically. If he's on the field a lot and doesn't get a ton of targets because his presence opens up the rest of the passing offense, I'm good with that. The weird part is that he's been on the field significantly less than Hollins or Coleman in recent games.

I only see that take on here. Every analyst I've seen discuss the MVP race has conceded that Allen doesn't have the same caliber of supporting cast. By the way TE is not debatable. Look at Baltimore's roster again. I'll agree we have the better OL. Offensive coaching I'll call a wash because it's too hard to separate the coaching from the QB play on both sides. Every other measure of supporting cast goes to Baltimore - RB, TE, WR. I am certain almost every GM in the league would agree with me. Lamar is responsible for 68% of his offense's production. Allen is responsible for 80% of his. It's two incredible MVP type performances, there are just too many factors going slightly in Allen's direction to not call him the clear winner.

Actually QBR likely graded that play extremely high because it adjusts for opponent quality, down/distance, and game situation (score differential, time left in the game, etc.), and it includes QB scrambles as part of the calculation. So I would bet that play approaches the ceiling of what a single play could calculate out to in QBR.

The run blocking thing is the only reason I can come up. It's just extremely unusual to divy up WR snap counts based on run blocking. Like I said I've never seen anything like it before. And I guess it's hard to argue with the results, but the offense has been somewhat clunky the past two games. It certainly hasn't been the dominant score at will offense that I think we'll need to make a Super Bowl run. Shakir has been MIA. Coleman as we can see is still learning the technical nuances and isn't reliable as an on schedule option. So I think it's time we get our best pass catcher involved as a featured option especially in the vertical game. I mean at least put him on the field, that's the part that doesn't make sense.

Also the Titans game. And those are the two games where we fell behind early. So it's like Brady knows he is our go-to passing weapon when we need one, but he's only funneling him the ball when absolutely necessary. I've never seen anything like it before.

I'm still a bit perplexed by his usage. Over the past two games Cooper had a 54% and 31% snap share, while Hollins had a 71% and 54% snap share, and Coleman had a 66% and 90% snap share. Even going back to the Lions game Cooper was out-snapped by Hollins and Coleman. And Cooper had just 5 total targets over those three games, while catching 4 of them. I mean it's good that when we need him to make a play he's making one but I really thought he would be a key feature of the offense by now. I guess Brady's offense just doesn't use the X receiver much?

Wait what

I would say Brady is the OC equivalent of a very good game manager QB. Nothing overly special, but consistent and mostly mistake-free. I've discussed this with @GunnerBill a couple times. Brady's best strength is that he knows what his players do well and he doesn't ask them to do more than that. He knows Hollins is mostly a blocking WR who should only get sporadic targets. He knows Cook is the gamebreaker but Ty Johnson is the 3rd down do everything back. He knows Shakir can catch short/intermediate passes in space. Etc. He isn't, say, asking Gabe Davis to read option routes and separate consistently from #2 CBs. As soon as he took over last year we eliminated the mistake-prone plays and started feeding the ball to our highest efficiency players. The bad side of his approach is that his offense is maybe too simple and maybe grabs from the same bag of plays too often. I don't see much creativity, I just see him finding what we do well and leaning on those plays to a fault. That approach has its merits but like I said back in August it's low risk, low reward. It requires a lot of consistent high level execution because any mistake disrupts the whole operation. This is perception more than reality: I just strongly disagree with this. Allen having a superstar season is the only reason we're having this discussion. Superstar doesn't mean 20 passes a game off his back foot 30 yards down the field. Brady had non-stop superstar seasons while making none of those plays. Allen's efficiency, field vision, and understanding of defenses are just as valuable this season as those Superman plays. His consistency has been amazing. He had, what, one half of football all season where you could say he was below average? To go along with like a full 50% of his season where he's been otherworldly? That is absolutely a superstar season. There are many games where I feel that he personally carried the team to victory - the first Jets game, Colts, 2nd Miami game, Chiefs, Lions, the Rams game we were only in it because of him. Every one of these games had drives and plays that required him to put the team on his back and he delivered in every big moment. I genuinely feel an average QB would have lost every one of those games and nobody would be sitting here today talking about Joe Brady the historic genius. Everyone around Allen has really just done enough to not get in his way as he's made the rest of the league look like junior varsity. Brady hasn't needed to do more than call simple concepts and lean on his players' strengths, because the QB has made it so difficult to fail.

Because people watch the games and he clearly is not the engine that drives that train. I would compare his season to Brock Purdy last year. I had said all along it was a joke that Purdy was in the MVP conversation and that he would fall back to earth if he lost even just a little of his absurdly good supporting cast. This year I feel vindicated in that take. Darnold is the same. He still makes his share of typical dumb Darnold mistakes but they don't punish the team because they have such a high margin for error. Jefferson is going to be a 1st ballot Hall of Famer. Addison has been a very good #2. Aaron Jones is close to elite. The OL is stout. The play caller is elite. You can't have all of that as a QB and be in the MVP conversation unless you have a historic season. Minnesota instead ranks 12th in YPG and 9th in PPG. An MVP QB would have that group at #1 in both categories.

They've managed to play very efficient football. I mainly credit Allen for taking his game to another level. It's a low margin for error style of offense and to his credit he has by and large removed errors from his game. It's a level that we've seen from him before but never so consistently and over such a long stretch of games. So basically what we needed for that style to work was for our QB to have an all-time great season and Allen delivered. Also the supporting cast has its faults but they aren't mistake prone like Gabe Davis and Isaiah McKenzie to name a couple former culprits. They don't drop passes, they don't run option routes in the wrong direction, they don't fumble the ball. We essentially excised mistakes from the offense and asked Allen to deliver 5 superstar plays per game, and that combination was enough to lead a middling offensive personnel to historic production. I both perfectly predicted it and completely missed the mark. It's been fun to watch it all develop.

Honestly man you're just way off base in this entire thread. Every superstar cares about their own achievements. Of course Allen would take a Super Bowl win over any individual accomplishment. That doesn't mean he isn't allowed to have some personal pride. If he didn't have that pride he wouldn't be a superstar.

Yeah that pick play was definitely Bernard's fault. But I was referring to the 2nd and 11 easy completion to Conklin. That is a play call failure, not a player failure IMO.

I don't think that was a player execution error. It's the play call. We love to do that "drop back, invite a short pass, rally and tackle." It's bit us in the ass a bunch of times in recent weeks. And opponents know that is our tendency and they come prepared to take full advantage.

Milano was actually pretty good against the Jets. I'm not expecting him to get back to an all-pro level this year, but if he keeps building on that last game he'll be more than good enough. I know nobody wants to hear this but I don't think the players are as big a problem as the scheme/coaching. Sure with the lack of superstar talent we shouldn't expect a top 3 defense, but we shouldn't expect a bottom 3 defense either. I don't believe that our talent is that awful. Some of the stuff on tape against the Jets early on was mind numbingly bad: -Milano forces a holding penalty which puts them into 2nd and 11. We respond by dropping into soft tampa 2, Bernard drops way back in his zone and Conklin just casually takes four steps and turns around and collects an easy catch for 10 yards. Suddenly we're in 3rd and 1 and only escaped with a stop because Rodgers missed a wide open TD pass. Why are we not pressing the advantage on 2nd and 11? Why are we literally inviting them to get all of the penalty yardage back? -On this play Benford was caught somehow covering both Wilson and Adams on his side: There are two players to worry about on the Jets and we're letting them play a simple high/low where the defender can't possibly win. -Here's Bernard picking his own teammate: I mean this is the kind of stuff we would laugh at Rex Ryan about. And here we are watching it on film two weeks before the playoffs.

I'll add to this by saying my biggest concern is that the defense has been not just bad but abysmal over the last month starting with the Rams game. I've been making fun of the Bengals defense all year but that's about as bad as we've been in recent weeks. I know people will say we basically shut out the Jets but having watched back the all-22 it was a lot worse than the scoreboard. Some truly awful play calls and execution errors in the first few drives and the Jets just ended up making dumb mistakes of their own to let us off the hook, before they finally just ran for the bus. I just don't see playoff offenses making those mistakes. I'm concerned any opponent we face will turn into a shootout, maybe even the Broncos in the wildcard. Is Babich on the hot seat for next year? He hasn't really shown anything that warrants him keeping his job, but is McDermott afraid to fire yet another coordinator after a short lived stint? Even if McDermott stays (which is almost 100% going to happen) I almost want us to blow up the defense completely and take that side of the ball in a new direction. Kind of like what we did with the offense this year which immediately paid dividends. Rousseau and Benford are the only ones that should be here for the long term (and Oliver since he's already been extended) since they are pieces you can build any scheme around. All other positions should be recalibrated IMO. Make big changes even if just for the sake of change because what we've stuck with has gotten very stale and very predictable.

An elite QB plus an owner willing to write blank checks is an advantage that no other franchise has. Not even the Chiefs - Beane has more power to give money up front than Veach does. It's an insane once in a generation type advantage and we have one AFCCG appearance to show for it. That's why the frustration has boiled over. It feels like we should have a dynasty and instead we're an also-ran.

The thing Brady does very well is sequence progressions. Dorsey's reads were scattershot and it made everything look clunky with Allen's eyes going all over the place. One side was the man beater, the other side was the zone beater. That's amateur stuff, NFL DCs aren't going to let you off the hook with that. Brady on the other hand has Allen following a natural progression where each route should be breaking open right when Allen's eyes get there. I'm still not convinced Brady is overly creative like some of the top offensive minds, and Allen has certainly saved his lunch a few dozen times, but it's hard to argue with the results. For his next step, as we enter the playoffs I'd like to see him develop the vertical game more. He has the horizontal game down, A+ on that. Time to get a few more explosives and really open the entire field. Call a few shots to Cooper when he's 1v1. Who cares if the CB has vertical leverage? Brandin Echols just found out that doesn't mean much with Cooper's catch radius. Make defenses afraid to leave him all alone outside and that will open up everything else.

How do you feel about Ed Oliver for MVP?

Hmm I feel the exact opposite, that if anything Brady over-relies on mesh especially on 3rd/4th downs. That's been a staple of our offense all year.

This falls on the owner IMO. Mara should have fired Daboll several weeks ago and required the interim coach to start Tommy Devito if his intention was to tank. Daboll is not going to sacrifice his own career when he knows there's a good chance he's gone after this season. He's doing what he can to prove he deserves an OC position somewhere else.

It kind of has been broken the past two games though. I know we're all happy with the wins but the look of the offense is not what it was when we went on that incredible multi-game streak after adding Cooper, culminating in 40+ points against the Rams and Lions. It seems like defenses have caught on and are taking away a lot of the easy button throws that our offense was running through. Shakir has been the primary victim of this, only getting 47 yards combined over the past two games. The solution is to start beating defenses over the top until they're frightened enough to back off, and then all the underneath stuff will open up again. We added Cooper specifically for that purpose, we might as well use him accordingly.