Billl

https://www.espn.com/nfl/boxscore?gameId=400951789

They’re out of their minds. There’s only one franchise dumb enough to make a deal like that, and unless the Texans figure out a way to trade with themselves, that’s not happening. If you give up that much for a guy with one year left on his contract, you have to work out an extension, and nobody is lining up to give away picks for the right to sign JJ to a mega deal.

Lotta good points here. If the Bills could have had Kansas City rest their starters in the AFCCG like they did in week 17 against the Chargers, that would have helped a lot. If they could have convinced Reid not to play Mahomes and Hill and Fisher like those games last year, that would have been a master stroke. How would you suggest McDermott go about that (speaking from an analytics standpoint, of course)?

Exactly. It was a 10 play, 42 yard drive that needed a dropped INT and a 4th down conversion in order to kick he longest FG in Arrowhead postseason history. Buffalo had to earn every yard on that drive. Converting a 4th and 3 was hardly a given, and even if they did, there’s no guarantee the drive would have ended in anything better than a FG attempt. Spagnuolo did a great job of tightening up in the red zone. Its easy to say that McDermott should have done things differently given that we know the outcome of the game, but it seems wholly unlikely that going for it there or at the end of the half would have changed the outcome of the game. Absolute best case scenario is that both drives end in TDs, and the Bills score 8 more points. That changes nothing. Worst case is Kansas City has a short field after the first drive, scores a TD rather than dropping that pass, and goes into halftime up 28-0 and receiving the second half kickoff. The Bills were able to capitalize on a couple of unforced errors to take a 9 point lead before the Chiefs hit their stride. Once that shifted, there wasn’t much that was going to change things. Hell, the Texans were up 24-0 last year after a similar start before Kansas City scored TDs on 7 straight possessions, and their fans spent all offseason playing the what if game regarding coaching decisions. Bill O’Brien is an idiot, but there was no button he was going to push that was going to stop that buzzsaw just like McDermott wasn’t going to use analytics to change the outcome of last week’s game. Andy Reid has been building his team for 8 seasons now. He’s got a QB playing as well as anyone in history, and that QB is surrounded by elite weapons. What’s more is he’s got the best defense he’s had since he arrived in Kansas City coached by a guy who has won multiple championships as DC. McDermott’s had 3 years. He’s added his version of Mahomes and Hill, but he’s still missing a Kelce and a Chris Jones. You don’t overcome that by coaching circles around your opponent, especially when the guy standing 55 1/2 yards away is Andy Reid. The Bills still have some roster improvements to make before it’s a fair fight.

He did it after an earlier sack as well.

Watson just signed a contract that expires in 2025 and averages $39,000,000. Zero chance Allen signs a contract that expires in 2029 averaging $28,000,000. Shaq Barrett is only 28 years old. He’s already on a team playing in the Super Bowl, so he’s not going to become a free agent and take a pay cut. I don’t think these guys are worth 20, but I think someone will pay them close to that. If your true value is what 50% of the teams would pay you, then that means 16 teams are willing to overpay. It’s why free agency is a terrible way to build a roster.

Allen completed 70% of his passes to pass catchers other than Knox. He completed 54.5% to Knox. That’s a huge problem. He only caught 24 passes all year, and he fumbled twice losing both. Beane has to fix the position in the off-season.

I’m not sure what would be more impressive between getting Allen to sign for $17,000,000 per year below his market value or getting all those defensive players to take massive pay cuts to play in Buffalo. If he does either, build him a statue.

The only thing you hate more than everyone talking about it is when nobody talks about it. Damn these people not forcing their beliefs on you.

Nice job of hand waiving away the difference between 1 TD and 10 (not to mention the 160 rushing yards and 2 TDs). If you take away every TD pass to Kelce or Hill, Mahomes has still thrown 60 and run for 10.

Terry Glenn, Troy Brown, Deion Branch, and Daniel Graham were all solid players. I mean he took over a team with a Super Bowl caliber roster that was good enough to win in spite of him. Tom threw 1 TD and 527 yards total in 3 postseason games. Mahomes threw 10 TDs and 901 yards last year.

At the same point in Brady's career, he had thrown 78 TDs and 41 INTs. Mahomes has 120 and 25. He's better than Brady was by orders of magnitude. So many things are out of their control when it comes to Superbowl wins that it's not really a fair comparison. Currently it's 6-1. An Offside call and a coin flip kept it from being 5-2 with a chance to make it 5-3 next week.

The key to being a savvy gambler is to know nothing about it and have your brother who also knows nothing about it go ask strangers on the internet for tips.

Well we’ve learned that my way sucks just as bad or worse. 🤣 Theres just no way the Bears who traded up for Trubisky had the 11th best draft while the Browns who drafted Garrett, Peppers, Njoku, and Ohunjobi were 32nd. Kansas City drafted Mahomes, Kareem Hunt, and Tanoh Kpassignoh ranked 6th. That said, the combined one certainly trends much better than the single season does. 8 of the top 9 teams made the playoffs, so that’s a strong indicator. Tampa being 14th makes sense because they didn’t draft Brady, Barrett, Gronk, Fournette, etc.

If they can, then there’s no need to suppress the cap in the first place.

The drafting has been interesting. Veach didn’t have a first rounder in year 1 due to the Mahomes trade. That draft was a complete bust, and not a single player will get a second contract. Year 2 also didn’t have a first round pick due to the Frank Clark trade. It landed Thornhill (very good pick), Hardman (next season will tell us more on that one) and a few role players like Saunders and Fenton. It was a decent draft, but it didn’t fill in the gaps left from the prior draft. Year 3 was a home run. We needed a lot of players who could eat up snaps to make up for 2018, and we got that in spades. Every player drafted made the team (excluding Niang who opted out but will be back next season), two UDFAs made the team, and a third has seen action in 11 games with one start. At least 6 of those players will on the roster long term with major roles (CEH, Gay, Sneed, Danna, Wharton, and Townsend) and it’s very likely that Niang will be as well simply due to draft position and need.Keyes has played well in limited action, but that remains to be seen. By next season, I fully expect CEH, Gay, Sneed, Niang, Townsend, and likely Wharton to be starters while Danna will compete with Clark and possibly replace him as starter in 2022. Landing a minimum of 6 starters in a single draft/UDFA cycle is tremendous for any team, let alone one with a Super Bowl roster that returned 20 starters. If all of them were simply role players, that would still be a win. That’s not the case, though. Sneed is already one of our top 3 defensive players, and Clyde is our feature back. Those two are already difference makers. The rest have only been role players so far, and that’s fine. They’re young, and they’re cheap...two of the best qualities role players can have. If nothing else, they allowed us to avoid paying premium prices for JAGs in free agency to fill a roster.

Sneed’s played about 80% of the snaps when healthy.

I am convinced that Spagnuolo figured something out on film. The Chiefs defense was constantly in alignments that caused Josh to audible. As soon as he did, Anthony Hitchens was telling the defense exactly how to respond. Yes the coverage was excellent, but when the defense has the perfect coverage called on 75% of the plays, the offense is pushing a rock up a hill all game.

I guess if your goal for 2021 and beyond is to have made the AFCCG in the 2020 season, you’ve got a point.

I like the idea, but it would completely undermine the owners’ rationale for the reduced salary cap. If they are cash poor due to COVID restrictions, how do they afford buyouts?

I just saw a stat that the Chiefs defense leads the NFL in completion percentage, TD/INT ratio, and QB rating allowed on passes that travel 10+ yards. They’re also outstanding, physical tacklers who can support against the run and even get after the QB on blitzes. I’m not the least bit concerned about that position group, and the front office has shown the ability to find quality late in the draft and off the scrap heap. The defense needs another LB and could use another Edge since Clark’s health issues seem to be severely limiting him. They also need a WR and at least one T. Coming into the season, it looked very likely that the 2021 season could be a step back while trying to retool the roster, but this rookie class has been a literal game changer. The team found several players who will absolutely be starters or key rotational players for the next s several seasons at RB, LB, CB, DE, DT, and P, and we still don’t know what we have with our third round T who opted out (and was rehabbing from surgery anyway). They’re also high on Keyes at CB for whom they traded back into the seventh round. The team has its nucleus of stars locked up on big contracts, and they just secured low cost players in the draft to supplement them. Amazingly, one of them has already turned out to be a star, and CEH and Gay have star potential. I’m very bullish on this team’s ability to remain elite for the foreseeable future. It’s pretty much the opposite of the Royals in 2004 and 2005 when you knew that there was no way to maintain any type of long term success.

Same here. I didn’t post here much in the postseason before our matchup because I was hoping the Bills would lose before they got to us and obviously when we played them. I didn’t want to post here while actively pulling against them, and I had the Bills and Ravens as the biggest threat to the Chiefs all season. Bills fans deserve a championship. As much as I want to win the next 20, if we only win 19 of them, I hope Buffalo gets the other one.

Sneed may be the #1. He’s already the best CB we’ve had since Dale Carter, and I don’t see anything about him that would mean he can only play the slot. Right now, there’s simply no reason to move him, as Ward and Breeland are very solid. Ward will be the #2 as he’s still cost controlled and is solid. Fenton is a slot guy for sure, and I’d have no concerns with him being a starter. Mix in a couple of safeties who can cover in Mathieu and Thornhill, and the team is pretty well set. You always need more CBs for depth, but there’s plenty of holes that need to be addressed before Corner. I would be stunned if they went that route in the first 2 or even 3 rounds.

CB is the deepest position group on the team. There’s next to zero chance they go corner in the first, particularly because it’s unlikely there will be any value there where the Chiefs are drafting. First round pick will likely be WR, Edge Rusher, or T. The team is currently loaded at the position, and they invested next to nothing to acquire any of them.

Top QBs are taking up about the same percentage of the cap as they always have. If anything, it should be higher.