HappyDays

The Steelers to me are a lot like the Saints, just with a higher floor. For years they've needed to take an intentional step back to then take bigger steps forward, but they've been unwilling to take their medicine. Trading for Metcalf and signing old Aaron Rodgers for his last rodeo was more of the same. They should have already fired Tomlin and blown it all up.

You just know Mahomes is texting his wife "staying late at practice" and then he just sits in the parking lot for an hour before driving home.

QBR supposedly accounts for rushing too. ESPN doesn't make the formula public so it's hard to say for sure.

Unfortunately with this passing offense there are no good ideas, just new ideas. Allen has already taken as many sacks this year as he did through the entire season last year. So yeah I also don't know if trying to hang in the pocket is the solution. Every solution fans are trying to come up with is talking around the real problem which is the personnel. Since that problem isn't likely to be fixed we have to live through the run game and Allen playing like Mac Jones. I hate the architecture but it's all we can do.

I think that's fair. Rolling to his right has been almost an automatic big play for him throughout his career so it's a habit that's been positively reinforced and that makes it hard to break. This is the first year where those plays are hurting us more than they're helping us. Since a bunch of new WR talent isn't walking through the door Allen might need to adjust his approach.

With the caveat that QBR can be wonky, but this matches the eye test. When Allen gets out of the pocket he isn't finding anybody working open for him downfield, or the intended receiver isn't making a clean catch along the sideline. This alone might explain the difference between the passing game numbers last year versus this year. Most of our explosive pass plays last year were off schedule. This year those plays just aren't happening.

I'll be honest I'm still not super impressed with Kincaid this year. He's for sure been better than last year, I'll give him that. He might be our best pass catcher but that's more a statement about the WR room than it is about him. I'll use one of the videos from Jim Kubiak's article as an example: Kincaid is directly to the right of Spencer Brown before the snap. His route break is rounded and pulls him right into his defender. I see this a lot from Kincaid, his breaks aren't sharp and/or he drifts into coverage. He's a decent route runner but he hasn't developed a feel for leverage and positioning. Once this play becomes a scramble drill Kincaid confusingly decides to run up the sideline with his defender plastered on him, instead of coming back into the empty space where Allen could get him the ball. These are the sorts of plays Kelce has been automatic on. I can't remember the last time Allen was in scramble mode and Kincaid managed to work open for him. If we can get defenses into heavy sets Kincaid can be a situational personnel mismatch, but as far as running the offense through him I don't see it.

AJ Brown. Jordan Mailata a close 2nd.

I mean that's definitely being inflated by a 394 yard performance against Baltimore. In the other 6 games he's averaging 194 YPG. Last year before adding Cooper he averaged 193 YPG. After adding Cooper he averaged 257 YPG. On one hand I agree with Jim Kubiak. We should pound the rock with James Cook. That is by far the best thing our offense does. But his headline is wrong - the reason we should pound the rock so much is because we have a WR problem. When he says "no WR can blow by a soft cushion" if he's talking about our WR room he's 100% correct. If he's talking about the entire NFL that's just wrong. There's this weird myth I keep seeing that offenses can't complete deep passes against cover 2 shells/soft zones. There are in fact holes in deep zones against those coverages but you need a WR group that can attack them. So yeah keep feeding Cook. But we've seen a bunch of drives this year where that 1st down run only gets 1 yard and converting suddenly feels impossible. I remember when 3rd and 15 felt like easy money with Josh Allen. Now you have Joe Brady in this week's presser saying out loud that they need to stay out of 3rd and 7s because it's too big a hole to dig out of. With Allen's arm that's embarrassing. There's no reason our offense should have such a tiny margin for error. The historically mistake free offense we ran last year was never going to be sustainable.

I guess a WR trade isn't happening this week, so... Chiefs 27 Bills 21 Don't get me wrong, there are some intangibles that favor us in this one. KC on the road coming off a MNF game while we were resting our starters in the 4th quarter of our last game. Josh Allen as a home underdog. These are factors that sharp bettors would latch on to. Allen is going to bounce back from his slump eventually and this opponent might be the best one to wake him up. Unfortunately I just don't buy that our offense is talented enough to out score them. Especially with Palmer likely to miss the game. Spagnuolo has rounded his defense into form as you'd expect. They're not going to lay down and die like Carolina did. Cook will get his yards but without a legit downfield passing game the margins are too narrow. The defense I actually expect to perform reasonably well as they usually do in the regular season matchup, but this is the best KC offense we've seen in a few years so I think 24-30 points given up is a good predictive range. I have very little confidence that we can win this game. If Cook can really take off at a level better than I expect and Allen plays MVP/near-perfect caliber QB then we can edge out a close win... but that's a lot to ask and even then we wouldn't run away with it. Hopefully I'm way off in my thoughts here.

I don't mean this as a criticism but Shakir is overrated by Bills fans. I don't want to say he's a gadget player, that's probably too reductive for the role he plays, but he's definitely a specialty weapon more than a normal WR. Bills fans talk about him like he's a legit slot WR and I even still see occasional comments that we should use him more outside and/or on deep routes. Neither of those roles are really his skill set though. He does his one niche thing extremely well, arguably better than any skill player in the NFL. Very good hands too. But he is not a natural route runner/separator. It's not like when we had "3rd and Beasley" where you could pretty much always expect him to get open on critical downs. And we've seen a couple times this year where Shakir needed to make a slightly difficult (but routine by NFL standards) sideline catch and he couldn't finish. I used this comparison before, can't remember if it was in this thread or another one, but to me the closest analog to Shakir is Xavier Worthy. Not because they share the same skill set but because they're both specialty players who immediately become less valuable when you're forcing them to do normal WR things on a down to down basis. KC was forced to use Worthy as a more traditional WR last year and it didn't go very well. The same is happening with Shakir this year. I heard someone on WGR say Shakir in every game either gets 4 receptions for 38 yards and 0 TDs or 4 receptions for 90 yards and 1 TD. I thought that was pretty astute. When he breaks one for a TD that's when he becomes valuable, but that's the absolute ceiling of what he can provide and you never see him just dominate his matchup defender. He really needs better options around him to draw attention so he can just live in his niche.

Rashee Rice is one of two players in the NFL that I openly root for injury. The other one was a former Chief and had a gruesome injury earlier this year, you can fill in the blank. Rice is just a total scumbag and I hope his antics haunt the Chiefs for his entire rookie contract. All the players wearing "Free #4" shirts was utterly classless and almost shocking. Other than that what is there to hate about them? I often find myself hating their opponent, but never the Chiefs. They don't cheat or play unfair. They play mistake free football and have the best coaching staff in the NFL. Everything they do could be done by us but we haven't made the necessary changes or additions to match them.

I think our defense can hold them below 30 especially if Hairston starts. Feeling much better about that group. I am much less confident that our offense can score 30. Unless we add a WR I have a hard time finding a path to victory, unfortunately. Could we beat them on the ground combined with a dominant defensive performance? Sure but I'll need to see it to believe it.

So one hand you're correct. If Allen doesn't play at his MVP near-perfect level we have no chance of going far this year. But why are you framing this as a criticism of Allen? In actuality it's a massive indictment of the people in charge.

Yeah I'm starting to get nervous. I really thought a move would happen by now. KC coming to town to face this crew? I'll hold out hope but not getting a great feeling about that matchup. I think we'll need to put up 30 and I just don't see it. Diabolical thought I had earlier - a team trading a WR to us should wait until the last possible week because if we lose the Chiefs game that puts us firmly in a wildcard spot, which gives them a higher draft pick. I don't know if GMs really think that deeply about it but maybe?

If Erik is correct here (and he does have locker room connections) this is another example of a play not working because of a dumb mental error by a player. If it's a one off you blame the player, when it's a consistent problem you blame the coach. Brady needs to get his guys on the same page. WRs lining up incorrectly, OL letting inside free rushers go by them untouched, Allen and his receivers thinking different play calls. They have to get this stuff straight.

The scramble drills this year have been so frustrating. Diggs/Brown/Beasley as a group was elite in that scenario. Allen getting free and running to the right sideline was an automatic big play. Now when he does it his receivers look utterly helpless at working open for him, or they fail to make a pretty routine sideline catch. I know fans get frustrated that Allen bails clean pockets but he's always done that and we're only complaining about it now because his pass catchers aren't making those plays for him. I watched the Chiefs game last night and Mahomes was constantly bailing the pocket. But almost every time he had someone working open for him. Kelce, Rice, one of the RBs, you name it. When you have a unicorn at QB that's something you should practice, it should be an ingrained part of your offensive structure, but instead it's been mostly wasted plays for us.

I really liked Coleman as a prospect but he just doesn't have it right now. I don't need to force myself to "find" issues, it's right there on tape. The Bills went all in on him taking a big step this year. They NEEDED that to happen for this WR room to be even average. Instead he seemingly hasn't progressed at all and as a result the WR room is in the bottom 5. It's arguably worse than last year post-Cooper trade.

Rice is a legit #1. He does a little of everything for them. Their struggling passing offense added one player and turned back the clock to 2022.

I hate when defenders helplessly lunge at Mahomes' ankles. If you just stay upright and keep following him to the sideline as soon as he stops to throw you have a clean shot

Not that I really thought Washington had a chance but the play calling has been abysmal. Mariota has been pretty decent throwing the ball downfield but they keep getting behind the sticks on these dumb screens and end arounds. McLaurin is your best player - use him.

These play calls are nuts

They need to stop giving Deebo touches. He is not close to the same player

I mean literally every close call goes to KC.