Richard Noggin

Seems like we have NO answers for why the Ravens went away from their bread and butter offensive attack. Except ball handling by a QB who hates the cold. The Bills actually DARED Lamar to stand back in the pocket and pick them apart. Some of those snaps, time-to-throw, were egregiously extended. The Bills were intentionally willing to let a pocket Lamar do his thing. Anything to prevent him from breaking out of containment. Outrageous snap-to-throw times. Smart to force Lamar into drop-back situations instead of scrambling situations, overall. Might have negatively influenced the quality of some of his most obvious throws, including the fading/nose-diving flat pass to Andrews that gets fumbled and dropped as je backpedals to adjust.

I can't imagine a world where Diggs actively accepts weekly target shares that range from nearly zero to double digits, but mostly result in negligible active involvement. Maybe repeatedly feeding Diggs on simple routes would help Allen get going against top defenses, such as the last two weeks, but Diggs' presence overall was more toxic than any potential benefit I can superimpose over this current HIGHLY synchronized offensive attack.

Yes, the Ravens were a super tough matchup, except that they didn't do to Buffalo almost ANYTHING they did to Pittsburgh. There was (effectively) ZERO zone-read, multiple-option ball handling in the backfield. Lamar's hands were COLD is the only justification. He did have two turnovers that were out of character. And must have been worried about more. Because we got the most vanilla version of the Ravens offense I've seen all season. The Ravens WERE pretty great, but just didn't translate that greatness onto the COLD field of the divisional round. I guess. Seriously, they leveraged almost none of the built-in advantages of having Henry AND Jackson. It was bizarre.

I do not consider this question, ever. Diggs is just WRONG about how championship teams are assembled and optimized, because he only allows for ONE vision of offensive roster-building and game-planning. NO ONE NEEDS a noisy, awesome, gritty, competitive ELITE-type WR who disappears in the playoffs. He DID suffer from having substandard WR talent around him as the years progressed, and there was the 13 seconds debacle. But otherwise, Diggs himself did not live up to his own standards when it mattered most.

Will be a real shame for visiting teams to have better facilities at the new Highmark Stadium. Probably will have hot water across the street. End of an era.

He clearly didn't think it was a PERFECT situation for him here. I think the same thing happened in Buffalo that had already happened in Minnesota: Diggs didn't want to be a part of a run-heavy (or even balanced) offense, especially when there was a WR1B (Thielen) competing for the reduced target share. Pretty sure he's been open about that shift in philosophy he didn't agree with. Might have coincided with Stefanski leaving for Cleveland? Similarly, once Daboll left Buffalo, Diggs understood that there was no more shield against McDermott's vision for physical, mistake-free, complimentary football. You know, WRs blocking in the run game. Unselfish football. Again, he knew he didn't fit with the HC's (new OC's) vision. (Might have also witnessed the worst stretch of Josh Allen's career, on and off the field, and decided the kid was too distracted and immature to turn it around.) Nice to see how wrong Diggs was about the Bills and about Allen.

There are legitimate questions about McDaniels as a leader and as a developer of QBs. That being said (lol), I've always respected his commitment to fielding physical offenses that run the ball and utilize the short passing game as an extension of that rushing attack. He's obviously been the OC for some VERY successful offenses/teams, and we all know the easy way to discredit his contributions to those successful seasons...but he's always struck me as a clever, ultra-competitive, worthy foe. (Totally possible that he's too intolerable and unyielding to work with today's players; I'd think that's where the HC and all the assistants could help to round out the workplace/meeting room culture.)

Was Lamar so affected by the cold (not sure how much he mentions his hands in the episode) that the Ravens offensive gameplan almost entirely scrapped any additional ball handling? Didn't see much of their scary zone-read, option-heavy attack with Lamar as the point guard in the backfield. None of that stuffing the ball into a back's chest, riding with him, and then pulling it out again. (Sounds hawt as I read that again...)

I had forgotten about this game, especially with respect to Glenn's D getting GOT by the Bills more than once...was it like 26 seconds remaining when we got the ball? I was at that game. ROWDY environment in the endzone/corner nosebleeds.

Lamar is a dude. If you love football, or even just sports in general, you can't dislike this guy. I've tried. It won't stick.

Feels like yeah, for sure, but also: is keeping Mahomes OFF the field with time of possession ever a BAD idea? This feels right to me.

We'll just ignore the Mahomes worship of your first paragraph, not because it's wrong, but because it's nauseating to anyone not on the KC bandwagon. The guy is easy to respect, and difficult to watch. Now, as for our buddy Spags. Love him, first of all. Truly great NFL DC. I genuinely admire the way he has had success in different ways over the years, while always remaining aggressive. And of course, he's a national treasure for defeating the Patriots twice with the Giants. That's ironic, actually, because nowadays with KC, Spags seems to emulate a lot of what Belichick's Patriots did on defense. He likes to get a bunch of DBs on the field. Without the benefit of readily available online information, I see a SUPER MULTIPLE, AGGRESSIVE, and AMORPHOUS defense that likes to clutter up pre- and post-snap reads and concentrate numbers in the box with interchangeable athletes. Belichick also favored 5 and 6 DB personnel whenever possible, from what I recall. Was always amazing and annoying to me how damned physical all the DBs were. Would seem difficult for them to hold up in this league, playing like that. KC guys seem similarly motivated to come downhill and/or drive a shoulder into a ball carrier who's just been downed. Come to think of it, didn't a couple KC DBs get dinged during last week's game? They might have all come back into the game. I forget. Too busy hating every Mahomes idiosyncrasy, every camera cut to the Special Suite, and every call by every ref, to think clearly on every snap.

Wait...are you saying Taron Johnson is NOT a starter on MOST other NFL playoff defenses ("maybe [he] could edge in")? And that Benford is not a starter on ANY other NFL playoff defenses? That's 13 other teams. That's completely ludicrous. Johnson has the most comprehensive/demanding defensive job on the field; these elite slot NBs who are part of the 2nd and 3rd levels, like LBs on some snaps but safeties on others, are like the undersized TEs of the defense (integral against run and pass). It might work out that these top, high snap count guys, like Kenny Moore II in Indy, can't consistently sustain elite play for more than a few seasons due to wear and tear and the fine lines between impact plays and being half a step late? (For those suggesting Johnson's play has cooled this season.)

Maybe, like jazz, it's the points we DIDN'T score.