PBF81

LOL

That's my take as well.

Funny though, a new QB sure "fixed" McD, who had been about a .500 coach after three seasons. Marrone and Mularkey gave us 9-7 seasons in a division where we would concede two games every season (aka 0-2) to the Pats, with Orton and Bledsoe at QB, the latter of which was about as mobile as I am most of us old-timers are these days. Ryan gave us an 8-8 season under the same circumstances. You don't think that either of them would be at least 10-7 with Allen at QB? ... in this easy cakewalk of a division that at least a third of the teams would win. And no, I'm not in the least suggesting that they be hired, just posing the question otherwise. Seems as if this team could sleepwalk to 10-7 in this crap division. Hell, to get there, assuming a 5-1 divisional record, all they'd need to do is go 5-6 otherwise. Why is that such a farfetched idea for so many?

Well, if your oldest son is still under 21 there's hope. Remember what Mark Twain said ... When I was 14 I was surprised at how ignorant my old man was. By the time I was 21 I was surprised at how much he had learned in 7 years.

That's great and the true pleasures of life!!! I had to chuckle though because you said after the game he comes in as if you locked yourself away from the family for the game. LOL

You must be young. The 9th time's the charm then?

It's more a pop-culture extravaganza than it is a football game anyway. So annoying in so many aspects.

One comment on the skill position players, or skill players as you put it, doesn't it make sense to play your best players more often? Shakir is easily our best WR. Yet his snap count is barely over 50%. Why? The short answer is because the current philosophy is to rotate the skill-position players, much as they do on the DL. That's clearly by design. The entire "everyone eats" philosophy deliberately means that non one gets significantly more ops than anyone else. The reasons why can be argued, but among them could very well be that they don't want to have another Diggs situation where one WR commands more targets than others. Obviously the merits of that are entirely debatable. Chase and Jefferson for Cincy and Minny respectively were at 93%. St. Brown 88%. Even the rookie McConkey was at 73% which increased throughout the season meaning that it was much higher once he hit steady-state. This methodology kills me. Shakir easily could have been in the top-10, maybe even top-5 given Allen. But that's not the approach we want. Maybe they don't want to have to pay WRs and hence the philosophy, which sounds idiotic if true. What's odd is that Hollins had the highest snap-count among our WRs, over 10% greater than Shakir or Coleman, yet his receiving total was less than half of what Shakir's was and about 2/3 of what the rookie Coleman's was. It would have been interesting to see how we'd have performed had Shakir gotten 90% snaps and Coleman with 80%+.

Well, as makes sense, it's best to move when there's a great candidate available. Ben Johnson has been that guy, but now he's off the table. it's never best to wait until your hand is forced. Be proactive and make a move while the best and better options are available. In Johnson's case that ship has sailed as is said.

Good post, thanks! Now to your points. You say all of that as if Pacheco was more than an average RB, or Hunt, or Smith-Shuster more than an average WR, Worthy more than a role-playing rookie WR, Hopkins and Kelce more than washed up as receivers with the latter on the cusp of retirement, or Brown anything beyond average. Their leading WR on the season ranked 60th in receiving. Kelce ranked 4th among receiving TEs, down about 30% in both YPR and receiving yards from prior years. It's not like we were up against Detroit's offense or the Rams etc. This offense on the season was patently average, in both skill-position talent and as a whole. Except in this game of course where they were made to look like the Chiefs' offenses of the recent past. Here's the thing with that take, Carolina, the league's 32nd (DFL) ranked Defense, held KC to 30 points. We allowed more points, more 1st-Downs, comparable total yards, all but identical passing yards, and only marginally fewer rushing yards, and also similar drive lengths. So is your argument that our talent on D is no better than Carolina's then? Also, what's your explanation, apart from an average RB Pacheco having been out, and a couple of other routine things otherwise mentioned above, for why the Chiefs only put up about 2/3 of what they did in this game in the first matchup? Surely Benford and Rapp having been present doesn't account for the Chiefs putting up nearly twice the rushing yards from that first game to this one. To start, McDermott may be on the hotseat with fans and media, but he'll never be on the hotseat with Pegula, at least not until there's a season or two under our feet in the new stadium, but as some have pointed out, Allen will be 31 or older by then. But otherwise, it's naive to think that given how the hiring process in bringing Beane on board, that McDermott has no significant say in which players Beane drafts. He's on record as telling his OC's what he wants and expects from them. The whole "everyone eats" philosophy is driven from the top, obviously. One last thing, we've essentially mitigated Allen and his passing in the four games prior to this one, a stretch during which he's averaged 17 for 26, for 166 Yards and 1.25 passing TDs. That's a 25% reduction from his season average in passing yards, and about a 40% reduction in his season average in passing TDs. Maybe he was a little rusty in going from game-manager to big-time arm passing QB. Just a thought there. But that's the risk you take when you embark on such a strategy, aka run first. But it's no secret that from the top we favor the rushing game. It's obviously a philsophical difference in the argument over whether or not it's better to take a generationally talented QB with arguably the strongest arm that the NFL's ever seen, and turn him into an "everyone eats" game-managing QB as he's largely been this season apart from his rushing, with approximately a 20% reduction in his passing metrics over the past four seasons on average. The counter of course is to not force the square peg into the round hole and make the passing game, given that circumstance, the focal point of your offense. But that's not what our version of complimentary football is. So it's definitely a philosophical difference. The biggest thing that I would question about our offensive philosophy, is rotating our WRs in/out like we do with our DL-men, and not playing the better WRs (Shakir e.g.) more often and allowing them to get into a rhythm. Again, that's also part of the "everyone eats" philosophy, which has its flaws as such. Shakir, our best WR, has barely over a 50% Snap Count. Coleman, our big hurrah from the draft has about the same. It definitely raises question as to overall strategy.

The offense didn't seem prepared for what KC threw at them. It makes one wonder whether, and since Reid knew that the likelihood of facing us in the playoffs was high, that in our first game he didn't bring all the varying pressures that he could, saving some looks for the playoffs. But the Chiefs must have done similar in some other games, that the staff should have caught and figured out. But both the offense and the defense looked a little overwhelmed in the first half, particularly the early going.

What hurts the most is watching KC and their ragtag and washed up bunch of incredibly average skill position talent players post their best offensive effort on the season. Imagine if this was our offensive skill positions instead of what we have, what would the outcry about Beane be. Hunt (average) Pacheco (average) Kelce (washed up, on the cusp of retirement) Hopkins (washed up, definitely into his back-9) Smith-Shuster (average at best) Brown (average at best) That ragtag group of crap put up more points than they had all season. For us, only Detroit, the Rams, and Baltimore put up more points. The talent differential between those teams and KC is monumental. We talk about our injuries on D, but honestly, those players aren't Hill, Kelce in his prime, or other premier players, many are backups themselves. Is it even possible to do worse in that regard? Because offensively, 29 points in regulation would have been enough to beat the Chiefs in 16 of 17 of their games. The holdout game there was KC's game vs. Carolina and their DFL 32nd ranked D. We couldn't do better than they did. SMFH

Well, all I know is that the Chiefs took a bunch of incredibly average skill position players on offense and just posted their best offensive game of the year against us.

It's both laughable and idiotic to think that if we were to change coaches that all of a sudden we'd be an 8-9/9-8 team with Allen at QB in this sorry division as it's been. This team was 8-8/9-7 several times, and on the playoff bubble, with hot garage at QB and coaches that never did a thing; Taylor, Orton, Bledsoe & Ryan, Marrone, Mularkey. All in a division with Brady perennially winning it. It's pretty inconceivable how the D could be any worse in the playoffs. But if you're measuring stick is the Regular Season that won't matter. McD was a notch above being a .500 coach before Allen went into gear. (25-23). He was a miserable 0-2 in the playoffs with losses to Marrone and O'Brien, .388 and .520 respectively. People forget that there was a lot of talk about him being fired then. Enter Allen! It's quite possible that Allen has made McD. In fact, someone recently posted an article from The Athletic here about Allen's rise to greatness. There wasn't one significant shred in it involving McD. All that said, McD isn't going anywhere, we all know that Pegula's never going to make that change. When Allen's gone McD will revert to the .500 coach he was destined to be without Allen, much like Marrone and some of the others we've had traipse through here during the drought years.

And BTW, it was that first half that sunk us. There's one reason for the delta in play of the defense between the two halves. One. Same talent.

Be more specific. You're hedging here. Four seasons in, our defenses collapse in the playoffs. Even last week v. the Ravens, if we don't get 3, THREE, TOs, we lose. Not getting any one of those TOs would have cost us the game. We've had all the horses we've needed in some of those season. So what's the common thread over the past four years? And if it's "not having the horses," then how do you explain our 4-0 RS record but 0-4 Postseason record? What, Reid and the Chiefs didn't care about those RS games?

Great question. So why? You've dismissed coaching based upon your reactions and statements. So what is it? And please don't say because we don't have the talent. For the umpteenth time, we performed worse than many bottom 10 defense, which also clearly aren't loaded with talent.

Better is relative. They still allowed KC two-thirds of their first game with us in the second half. That's good because it wasn't, in either half. But for a team who's high in points scored on the season was 30, once, 29 points was more than enough to win it had even an average defense showed up. I think you're missing what I'm saying. The D allowed the Chiefs to have their best offensive output ALL SEASON. Carolina did better. Are we not at least as good as Carolina, who ranked 32nd in D? Also, 4-0 in the Regular Season, 0-4 in the Postseason. Same teams each year. Does much more have to be said.

Except that he's Dan Marino's passing with more than Steve Young's running ability.

They don't seem to want elite pass-catchers in this "everyone eats" scheme. The buffet got smaller by design, so everyone eats, but the rations aren't much more than sustenance rations. What big name WRs are going to want to play in such a system. Also, since when have teams rotated WRs in and out like people change their underwear? Only here.

So they were worse than Carolina's 32nd ranked D then? Because that's the way they played. Also worse than Clevelands 29th ranked D, SF's 27th ranked D, Cincy's 26th ranked D, the Raiders' 25th ranked D, Atlanta's 23rd ranked D?

Maybe that's what happens when you average only 26 attempts/game (17 completions) in the four games prior to a huge game like this. But hey, we want to focus on the running game, not our passing game, so it is what it is.

You are aware that we just allowed Reid's offense to post a season high performance, right? BTW, that includes what the 32nd defensively ranked Carolina Panthers allowed.

Because we drafted Allen a year after he was brought on.

Well, they've spent enough resources on that D. And we know, based upon the hiring relationship between HC and GM, that the former is involved in deciding the roster. Either way, it doesn't explain why our D sihts the bed in the playoffs, and why, for example, we allowed KC to have a better offensive game than the 32nd ranked 5-12 Carolina Panthers. Our talent isn't that bad.