HappyDays

On Spencer Shrader - He was a UDFA from Notre Dame. He was only 15 of 22 (68.2%) his final year there. For the Jets - Against Houston he made 3 of 3 XPs, no FG attempts. Against Arizona he made 2 of 2 FGs, from 25 yards and 45 yards.

Well this is something. Butker is an underrated reason for how they win so many close games.

I just don't think you can worry about that right now. FWIW I believe the Bengals will lose three more games and just miss the playoffs at 8-9. But there are like five different teams I could see being the 7 seed. Whoever it is, give me home field advantage two times and hope to avoid having to beat both the Ravens and the Chiefs. If we can't win in the wildcard round we were never destined to win a Super Bowl this year.

I agree the 1 seed is doubtful even if we win this weekend, but I think this game could ultimately decide the 2 seed. We need to keep a full game ahead of the Ravens and that is an outcome worth fighting for.

@Zerovoltz gave up on the season when the Chiefs traded for Deandre Hopkins. They need worse receivers to be a real contender.

Sherfield isn't a minor role player, he's an unrosterable player. Hollins has shown he's a rosterable player that ideally is WR5 on the depth chart. A very good WR5 at that especially since he plays special teams. I just don't agree that minor role players can't make important catches. Even Sherfield made one of the catches of the year against Miami last year. I like that Hollins has grown some chemistry with Allen. None of his catches against Indy were plays where he outright won a rep against a CB, but he had some savvy plays making himself available to his QB and caught the ball when thrown his way. That is what you want your WR5 to do when forced into action. A lot of the posts in this thread have somewhat of a "told ya so" cast. As in, all the people that said Hollins isn't a good WR were wrong. Like I said I happily admit he is better than the unrosterable player that I pegged him as when we signed him. But the WR room very clearly was not good enough to start the year and Hollins being one of our two starting outside WRs was a big reason why. The passing offense has been very inconsistent whenever he's been asked to go above his ideal 0-2 targets per game. Luckily Allen is playing the best football of his career and that means Hollins has been enough to get us out of most games when called upon.

Rousseau and Miller both play at their best from the right side of the offense so I'm sure how much of an advantage we'll have against Morris (or Suamataia if we're lucky enough to have him enter the game). The Broncos dominated the left side of their line last week so hopefully we can do the same. That is definitely the easiest path to stopping the Chiefs offense this year.

Correct. Hollins is a solid depth piece and minor role player. Nothing more, nothing less. Like I said.

Cook is easy, let him walk. Shakir is difficult for me. If he's getting $20M per season I let him walk. I love his YAC skills and his chemistry with Allen but that's too expensive for a slot WR who's better after the catch than before. Bernard I think will be cheap enough to re-sign. He is a really good fit for McDermott's scheme but other teams might not value him as much. Plus he is injury prone and small. I see us getting a team friendly deal and I'm good with that because I think he is growing into one of the best pass coverage LBs in the league. The INT he had against Houston and the almost INT he had against Indy were not even necessarily bad reads by the QB, he just read the plays at an almost psychic level and got to a spot that the QB never would have expected. Benford will be a priority for Beane I am sure. He is a culture fit and a scheme fit and he just keeps getting better. And I don't think he's going to get a massive record breaking deal or anything like that because he is a zone CB. Tre White got 17.25M AAV when we extended him. I could see Benford getting very similar numbers even after accounting for salary cap inflation because he's a tick below what Tre was as a player.

I mean in the games where he's been asked to be more than just a depth WR with limited targets, Allen objectively has had worse stats. I have nothing against Hollins at all. In fact he's been better than I expected and I can admit I was wrong about him - I called him another Trent Sherfield when we signed him and he has been a clear step above that. I'm just saying he is not a player you want as one of your starters outside. He is a depth piece and a minor role player who has done as much as could be reasonably expected. The post I was responding to mentioned Allen's passer rating when targeting Hollins, and I'm saying that that alone isn't enough to summarize Hollins' value to the offense. The fact is that in games when Hollins is targeted a lot, the passing offense's performance declines. Here's Hollins' games this year ranked by total targets: Baltimore - 6 Houston - 6 Miami (home) - 5 Indy - 4 Jax - 2 NYJ - 2 Arizona - 2 Tennessee - 1 Miami (away) - 1 Seattle - 0 If you were to rank the passing offense from worst game to best game it would look very similar to that list. Miami at home is the one glaring exception. Clearly the passing offense is better when Hollins is targeted 0-2 times per game.

Yeah but on all those snaps where he's not targeting him it's because he isn't getting open. Allen's worst two games of the year were Houston and Indy, no coincidence that in those two games Hollins was asked to be a full time starter. We came into the season with Hollins as our #2 outside WR and clearly he is not built for that kind of role which thankfully Beane recognized. Now that he's a depth WR who only needs to play in case of injury he is fulfilling his role admirably. Nothing more, nothing less.

Good to see him catching passes. I believe the last time the media saw him at practice he was just working off to the side not catching anything.

He makes a couple of ridiculous individual plays every week against the run. There was one against Indy in the red zone where he's slanting inside and Jonathan Taylor has a wide open path around the right edge. If you looked at a freeze frame you would be certain it was going to be a TD. Instead Rousseau manages to push his blocker back outside and get his hands on Taylor to get him down. In fact, here's the play: That's a TD saving play. He does this sort of thing regularly.

Rousseau is a difference maker against the run. I consider him elite in that area, possibly #1 in the league. I know that's not the first thing you think of with edge players but it's worth pointing out. As a pass rusher though he is in the "good" tier, I would agree certainly not a difference maker there. He does have a tough job though because there is no interior pressure to speak of so he has to outright get to the QB, if he just makes the QB step up in the pocket that isn't enough to win the rep.

The Chiefs unfortunately break the trend, because of course they do. They have a negative turnover differential on the year - 1.3 giveaways per game, 0.9 takeaways per game. The only other team that has a winning record with a negative turnover differential is Atlanta at 6-4. The Chiefs being 9-0 with a negative turnover differential is simply absurd. Throw out all the rules when you're talking about KC. Bad LT, top two WRs are out, #2 CB is out, negative turnover differential, the QB is probably having the worst season of his career. Somehow none of it matters.

DeJean and Williams are slot CBs, so Benford is currently the 2nd best outside CB in yards per target allowed. I'll admit I can't help but wonder how much of this is scheme related versus talent related, we know that McDermott's scheme elevates zone CBs, but you can't ignore the raw numbers. I also appreciate that he plays a physical style. That style will be even more of an advantage in the playoffs.

Thanks man. No way anybody could have misinterpreted this thread title.

Talk about a tipping point week for the AFC: Chiefs at Bills Ravens at Steelers Bengals at Chargers

I mean they have given him plenty of surrounding talent. DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, a highly touted rookie WR, Kmet is a decent starting TE. They have a very good defense which takes the pressure off the offense. The OL needs some work for sure but no #1 overall QB is stepping into a perfect situation in their rookie year. Everyone always wants to praise or blame the coaching staff. Personally I think great QBs will become great no matter where they're drafted, and the same in reverse for bad QBs. Darnold was supposedly "ruined" by the Jets but now he is turning back into the player that he always has been even in an elite offensive system with elite talent. Allen didn't become great because Daboll screamed at him on the sidelines, he himself put in the work and methodically eliminated all of his major flaws. That's what Caleb Williams has to do. The concern is that Williams is looking as bad or worse now than he did to start the season. You would have hoped to see some progress at this point, but it's still very early. The Bears did the "make the fans happy" move and fired the OC. Maybe that will help some, but it isn't going to transform Williams into a player worthy of the #1 selection. He has to do that on his own.

It's crazy that the 3-6 Dolphins have a real shot at a wildcard. The AFC is garbage this year.

Ridiculous that the officials would fall for such an obvious flop

There's no amount of creativity that can hide a jailbreak OL. The RT Noteboom is having the worst individual performance I've seen in a long long time.

Wow he nails the 52 yarder, but the Rams false start... Then he misses the 57 yarder... They are fitting a season's worth of gut wrenching mistakes into a single game.

It's shocking how many goofy mistakes the Rams offense has made in this one. This is like a week 1 game.

The Rams OL is as bad as I've ever seen. Holy hell. The offense can't even function at a basic level like this.