BullBuchanan

Why would anyone want to be an optimist? The entire concept is based on blind faith that things will magically work out even if you're not doing anything to address it. I'm a realist. When there is cause for me to be excited, I will be.

it's irrelevant. This is all just pre-season.

He's a grown ass man who's already made tens of millions of dollars and it's beaten into players these days just how severe of a problem concussions can be. Tua's playing because he wants to, and that's his decision. No one should be able to get in the way of that if that's what he wants to do. For a lot of players, being in the NFL is the culmination of their entire life's work. There is no after that will provide any semblance of parity to what they are actively experiencing. I earn a solid upper-middle class living, am relatively healthy and if I've had concussions, it been a good 20 years since, but I would trade places with Tua in a heartbeat if I could and I'd keep playing until no team wanted me, there was nothing left to achieve, or until I just couldn't do it anymore. The money wouldn't even be a top 3 reason for doing it. Life isn't that important that you should sacrifice the things that make it worth living in the first place.

It definitely nothing to scoff at, but a lot of those wins came despite McDermott's many blunders and failings as a game day coach. I give him a ton of credit for having a staff in place that can build up players, especially depth players, to the point where I feel we have less of a dropoff than other teams would given our many injuries and we get a tremendous return on late round/UDFA defensive players. That said, I've watched other coaches put a clinic on him more times than I can remember. On some of those occasions we've still won, but in the most important games in KC, we haven't. I also put this team's miserable unpreparedness to play in Cincinnati completely at his feet. That game to me showed that he didn't have the ability to be a true leader, let alone a force multiplier for this team. All that said, I think this week's performance against Miami was one of the best of McD's career. Miami, with Tua or not, was completely out-schemed and out-coached in every facet of the game. If you told me they had a direct line to Miami's headset, I'd 100% believe you because they just completely had their number. I was initially upset at the way the team started the Arizona game, but If I look at the 2nd half as an extension tot he Miami game, I feel much better about it. I still hated the gameplan for the end of the 4th quarter, but I've always thought McD's situational decision making in tight spots was his weakest ability as a coach. Hopefully this year he proves that he's learned from his past mistakes when it really matters.

We fold every time we play the Chiefs or Bengals in the playoffs, so not sure we should be throwing stones regarding "beating good teams"

I disagree on at least 2 of those 3 points. They had the #1 offense in the league last year and a top 10 defense. Their offense is stacked with talent and they stocked up on defense in this year's draft. Another good draft next year to help replenish their big men and secondary and they shouldn't miss a beat, assuming they have a QB. McDaniel also appears to be a good coach. I'd have him in consideration at the back end of my top 10 as of now. They struggle mightily against the Bills, which is obviously a huge problem but it shouldn't condemn their entire operation. It's a mirror version of us and the Brady-era Patriots.

Neither for at least 2-3 years best case. Ben Johnson still doesn't have a HC job.

Stefanski had them int he playoffs 2 of the last 4 seasons and has a winning record. Pretty far cry from the drought Bills.

I would have picked Likely for offense. Dude was an absolute beast. The called back touchdown probably cost him.

Von had two good snaps that I saw. The bull rush and another where he got pressure. i still need to see A LOT more for me to want him to be anything more than a 5th/6th DE. Odd, because I have thought of Groot as a Kelsay type player thus far - very good against the run and a run of the mill pass rusher. He had an awesome game that included 15% of his career sacks. He hasn't exactly been DeMarcus Ware. If he gets 7 more sacks across the next 16 games do you want to pay him like a top 10 DE?

Yikes. I thought he did his job and looked solid, but I would never have said he was "one of the best players on the field". It's true he had his side locked down most of the game, but he wasn't challenged at all. He spent most of the day fending off a 5th round rookie and a 7th year journeyman with 14 career sacks. I definitely didn't see anything that would classify him as a "manimal". He wasn't out there blowing people off the line or running them over. He just did his job.

No doubt he was the primary cause there, as I already said earlier in the thread, but to completely discount the fact the brown ran into Josh's running lane, maybe even clipped him, and his man recovered a fumble is a bit much to sweep under the rug.

I'm not sure how they score him 100% when he was a big part of the strip sack

I'm not sure a franchise RT exists. If they do, not sure I want one. Morgan Moses graded out higher than Spencer Brown last year and makes 5M. Trent Brown did as well and makes under 5M. Draft a rookie and grab a vet.

Now the 8th highest paid RT in the league - absolutely insane contract. Beane continues to bend himself over a barrel in very contract negotiation.

I did it for you since apparently it was too hard.

You should read the next sentence you conveniently omitted. Context matters.

It wasn't the most elegant statement but it's completely true. If Murray was going through his reads based on The playcall and defensive looks, and it just so happened that MJH wasn't a top read a large portion of the game, then that's what I want my QB to do. It's what i wish Josh would have done more of the last few years instead of always looking for a home run.

I'm not arguing semantics at all. I'm arguing that if Diggs catches that ball, then this whole agenda from certain members of the board doesn't exist. Meanwhile, Josh had a pretty similar situation at the end of the game where if he makes a play, we win. If he doesn't, we lose. He didn't and we lost. I'm not saying it was solely his fault we lost the game, and I'm not even arguing it to the point that people are about Diggs' drop. Facts are facts There were a ton of factors that went into us losing last year (injuries, defensive personnel & scheme), but at the end of the day Josh had the ball at the KC 26 on 2nd down with under 2 minutes to go and he didn't get it done. You want to act like if Diggs wasn't here we win that game? Ok. I think it's ridiculous.

You're the one who said: "He didn’t produce when we needed him most. For whatever reasons, it doesn’t matter. We need our best players to produce in the playoffs. He didn’t." That's pretty much the book on JA in the playoffs outside of the 13 seconds game. We needed him to run out the clock and score a TD against KC - he didn't do it. We needed him to show up and lead the team against the Bengals - he didn't do it. Look, I think he's the 2nd best QB in football overall, but if you want to judge a player solely on how they perform "when we need them the most" and trade everyone who doesn't have monster games every time, then you're the one saying that about Allen, not me.

I imagine more people than I will if the Texans outperform us in January.

Except again, there are tons of "big games" where they did both produce, you just wanted to omit those because they were victories against playoff teams you viewed as inferior. I'm already prepared for a narrative at the end of this year where we'll blame a lack of weapons for our inability to get the job done when this scenario was one of our own creation. Maybe the "Diggs was the problem" crowd will get lucky and injuries or a defensive meltdown will be the reason instead - can't wait to find out.

I mean, he has a sub 87 passer rating in every playoff loss outside of 13 seconds and in half of his total playoff games, so if you take @Alphadawg7 argument that only the losses matter because the stats against loser teams like NE and Pittsburgh don't matter, then the argument that Josh is a great playoff QB doesn't hold up to that metric. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/A/AlleJo02/gamelog/post/

ok. seems you ended this conversation with the perspective you walked in with. Hope that was fun for you. Are you going to apply that same philosophy to Allen?

I'd prefer to look at all of his stats, not just selecting ones that support an agenda. I also like to look at the context around events that happened, not just stats. Diggs had a poor game against KC - not defending it Cincinnati game was a dumpster fire that was the worst playoff performance of Josh's career. He missed a wide open Diggs target for a big gainer and possible TD early in the game and didn't target him later when he was open in the endzone - instead throwing to a heavily covered Davis. He was open constantly. Against KC in 2021 - he had two big third down catches for 1st downs, but other than that, it seemed mostly like game script. They used the middle of the field a lot to beasley, and Davis erupted for 200 yards and 4tds. Not sure you can fault a guy for underperforming when his teammates go 14/261/4. Against KC in 2020 he had a solid game with several important first downs, and Josh missed him on several critical plays for a bigger day. It's certainly not a resume that jumps off the page, but it's also not worthy of the scapegoating agenda that's so prevalent around here.