PBF81

There is zero evidence that the defense is capable of propelling this team to a championship. To the contrary if anything. Was it merely because of our offense that we lost five other games?

Preseason? Why does that matter? Also, that 2014 team was led by Orton, as we've discussed in the past. A washed-up Jackson was our RB. So to go only a game better with Allen and Cook would seem to be seriously underachieving, the reasons notwithstanding. That 2004 team was led by Bledsoe. Same there.

BTW, here's another perspective. After 16 games we're 10-6. That's only a game better than Malarkey's 2004 team and Marrone's 2014 team, both of which had much more difficult schedules, Marrone's the second toughest schedule over that same 15-years. It's also only a game better than McD's inaugural season with Taylor at QB. I'm going by the strength of schedule metrics.

Here's where I would push back on that. We've had the easiest schedule we've had in 15 seasons. The AFC is the weakest it's been since McD arrived. IMO 13-4 given the level of talent that we have on O, and now in hindsight particularly that we've had the least injured OL in the league, with each OL-man posting over a 96.5% snap count, and with Torrence at 100%, the addition of Kincaid, the emergence of Cook as one of the best, possibly second only to McCaffrey, 13 wins should have easily been expected. As it is, our scoring, now with Allen in his fourth emergent season, will be less than it was over the past three seasons, which is inexcusable given the above. JMO

Just a thought, maybe the reason why we haven't has to do with coaching. Just sayin'.

OK, great, but when you said all that it was preseason. Rodgers went out for the Jets. Herbert was out for the Chargers when we played them. So was Allen and Bosa BTW. i.e., I'd take our injuries over theirs. If we had the same luck, Allen, Diggs, and Milano would all be out. KC, as it turns out, has no WRs. Not that this should have been a mystery, nonetheless. That's four games. I also think that you'd get quite a bit of argument here that Jax and the Chargers are closely matched. The Charger D sucks. Jax's offense, inexplicably perhaps, is ranked 13th, their D 15th. Not sure that equates to being closely matched. Nor has Lawrence's play even approached Allen's, Cook's having a better year than Etienne, and the WRs/TEs are arguably comparable. We definitely have a significantly better D however. Thanks!! Either way, 12-4 right now is hardly unreasonable. So getting back to my point, and changing it from 13-3 to 12-4, if we were 12-4 right now we would likely have a legitimate shot at the 1st Seed, if not the #2 Seed and Division wrapped up already. That would have been a whole lot more impressive for McD rather than three losses to teams that by your implication, are not closely matched in terms of talent. Jets, NE, and Denver. Fine, let's say that throwing the ball over 70% of the time against a team whose defensive strength was their pass D wasn't a coaching issue, we still lost games that we shouldn't have to NE and Denver. At the end of the day, McD's disposition has absolutely zero to do with how or what anyone here says or thinks. His disposition will depend upon his own judgement and coaching on remaining gamedays. You did say that, otherwise we never would have been in disagreement. I do not disagree with the adjusted take that you now seem to have on Gilliam. My take was that he was never worth the $2M+ that his contract was for. It certainly hasn't been this season. Anyway, who cares. Let's call it. The thread search doesn't go back that far. It's not that important. .

I reviewed every single play in the KC game and found only one I think it was in which he made an impact. You said that he make a bunch in that game. I'm happy to do it again, it didn't take that long. The entire conversation came up when I cited his lack of stats for a player that was getting $2M+, and that's when you claimed that his contributions didn't show up on the stat sheet. "Key blocks" was among them. Then you cited that game, I went through and viewed every single play he was in, found that he made only one impact as I recall, you can find the posts if you want, and gave you the time-stamp of every play in the video. I cannot disprove something th You then said there were a whole bunch on the season. You never provided any others. Fact. Either way, that past us, do you think that Gilliam's done anything noteworthy to earn his $2M+ this season? I've asked this three times now and have yet to get an answer. It's a simple question. I don't even know why you'd hesitate to say no.

OK, so they're not a better team, you're simply saying that they outplayed us then, right? Out of curiosity, of the teams we've played, which do you think are better than we are on paper, this season, all things considered? Jets twice Pats twice Fins twice Chiefs Chargers Broncos Raiders Eagles Cowboys Washington Giants Jags Bengals Tampa

Well, you provided me two games, one was the KC game, which I went through play by play and disproved that. I then asked you for more games. You said you were in some pub and were in the middle of lunch and drinking or something and you'd get back to me. You never did. I've ignored it until now. As they say, best to let sleeping dogs lie. Either way, since you obviously had them documented, either mentally or somewhere, throw them out, I'll look at 'em and we can discuss further. Again, do you now claim that he's made any kind of significant impact this season besides that one TO? I know he had a big penalty on Sunday. I suppose that's impact, just not for us. Anyway, I'm all eyes and ears and have been waiting.

And naturally the coaches, particularly McD, had little control over us throwing the ball 70% of the time, over 2/3 of the plays, when the weakness of the Jets' D is their rushing D. OK Out of curiosity, what makes the Eagles better? What? Better OL? Better QB? RB? D? We've scored 430 and allowed 297. They've scored 423 and allowed 401. So out of curiosity, what in your mind makes them a better team? We can go over the offensive and defensive rankings in numerous categories if you'd like, but I don't think that they top us in any of them.

So are you now saying that Gilliam didn't make quite a few impact plays on offense last season then? Which is it?

Good luck getting a direct answer.

When sufficient info and facts aren't provided to produce a meaningful discussion, I'd place the reason for a lack of one onto the person making claims but not avowing them firmly.

No you didn't, and you cannot find the post where you did. You gave me like two from two games but claimed that he did it all season. When I pressed you, you said that. you were at some pub and then wasn't the time. Haven't heard a peep since. Feel free to find the posts if you think you did. Or better yet, produce all those "impact plays" at you called them I believe. And are you now claiming that he's made impact plays for the offense this season too now? Either way, who cares. But you do seem to be the only one that doesn't think we should have won the first games with the Jets and Pats, Denver, and Jags, or at least two or three of them. He'll sink or swim on his own. It's not like it's coming down to a forum vote as to whether or not he stays. LOL

Right, just like you gave me all of those games and plays where Gilliam was instrumental on big plays last season. ... which I'm still waiting on BTW. Just like that. Yeah, I get it. At least we should be able to agree that Gilliam's been just a JAG this season. A $2M+ JAG.

He has never had any trouble speaking for himself, thank you!

Weird year for sure. Look at the South divisions. LOL. 6 of the 8 teams 7-9 to 9-7. Only SF and KC as double-digit win teams in the West divisions, KC barely. It was obvious that this was going to be a much rougher year for KC. As to the NFC, hasn't it always just been the Eagles, Dallas, and Niners this season though? Both Dallas and Philly appear to be folding late in the season. Neither has any significant momentum going into the playoffs. This is one of those seasons that seems to illustrate the "parity" of the league. What do you think are the two best teams from each conference?

What are you, his mom? He hasn't answered them directly. He's hedging, as he often does. I'm just not letting him off the hook.

OK, so that's two more games (Pats and Broncos) per your admission. So does it change anything if I reword the argument to 12-4 instead of 13-3? As to the Jets game, suggesting that coaching had nothing to do with that one is a bit of a reach given that we ran the ball 16 times by our RBs, against a team that ultimately had a 24th ranked rushing defense, and contrasted with 2-and-half times that in passing plays. Perhaps a more suitable game-plan would have been wise. Allen doesn't create the game-plans. Good coaches find workarounds in situations like that in close games. Yeah, Allen sucked, but our coaching easily could have helped him out a little bit more. And yeah yeah, Dorsey schmorsey, is McD in charge, or isn't he.

So you think that beating the 4-12 Pats, 6-10 Jets, and Broncos or Jags was out of the question, three of the four? Well, OK. Agree to disagree. The talent is relative, that's what was fundamental. Apparently you believe that the Pats, Jets, Jags, Broncos and possibly the Bengals have more talent than we do. I wholeheartedly disagree.

He might be COTY if we had the 1st Seed locked up. The only reason why we're in it for the 2nd Seed, is because the AFCS and AFCW are as weak as they've been in years.

That doesn't answer the question as to which of the two underlying points that I made you fundamentally disagree with, much less why. That's OK, no worries. Again, this isn't all that important.

What? I was referring to the games we won that you ascribe "complimentary football" to for our wins under Brady. Three of those 5 wins were against teams QB'd by Zach Wilson, Shtick, and Zappe. That's a fact. You seem to be dismissing the notion that it shouldn't take much more than an average, if even that, to beat any of those teams. Hence, perhaps why they've lost an average of 11 games. Again, call me crazy. Either way, is this that important to you? I'm truly not sure what you're arguing at this point.

Fundamentally, why not? Fundamentally there are two primary points there. First, that the D has played very well considering the injuries. Secondly, that we have more talent all around than just about every team of the teams that we've lost to. Do you take issue with the notion that our d has played incredibly well given the injury situation? Or do you take issue with that notion that we do not have more talent than at least three of the teams that we've lost to? Jets, Pats, Denver, Jags, Eagles, or Bengals? Curious where the disagreement is.

Feel free to add the required details to actually make that a legitimate argument. Otherwise, so you're implicitly stating that "complimentary football" means a positive time-of-possession then? Be clear here. And otherwise, using simply the Chargers game as an example, with no one on the field offensively for them of any consequence, they managed to hold us to 52 plays, 13 below our average, while we allowed them 65 plays, 5 plays more than our average. We won. So you're insisting that running few plays, what, helped us win? Our time-of-possession in that game was about 27 min. It could also be that we're 5-1 in the last six because three of the teams we played and beat had QBs like Stick, Wilson, and Zappe and are a combined 15-33, on three teams among those with the worst 8 records in the league. Call me crazy. LOL.