PBF81

We'll have to agree to disagree. Skylar Thompson, plain and simple, in one of his first few starts, in Buffalo, snow, etc. 412 Yards and 30 1st-Downs in a perfectly balanced offense (240 passing, 172 rushing) vs. Cincy which was also Cincy's best offensive playoff performance under Burrow. 552 & 30 1st-Downs to KC. Two of their biggest three offensive playoff games were against us, and once vs. our vaunted #1 Defense which was the Chiefs best playoff game offensively under Mahomes. So yeah, it was the D. 472 Yards and 27 1st-Downs to a 9th ranked Indy offense led by Rivers and worse WRs than we have after Diggs and Davis, in Indy's only playoff game over the past 4 seasons. "13 Seconds" But if you think that's good, that's fine. I don't. Again, agree to disagree.

Yeah, the schedule is a concern for sure, and things seem to have tightened up behind us this past weekend. Maybe I'm still in a state of thinking that we cannot possibly continue to play this poorly over our last nine and that given the talent we have on O that we'll shake this funk. The AFC North is worth keeping an eye on in that regard.

Maybe McD will give Peterman another shot at it. He probably still believes that Peterman can give a team the best chance to win. This was a great idea Joel! Where else can you get a cup of hot chocolate for $4.

All that "Vegas" is, is the trending opinion. Until the heavy money gets lopsided anyway.

OK, forget it then. Focus on the other four wins which are even less impressive. (Shrug) You don't think we'll end up with a wild-card even?

I'm not expecting it. At the same time, the game hasn't been played yet. You know my take, it hasn't changed. In fact, it's playing out right on schedule. McD has enough rope to hang himself with and he seems to be doing just that. Whether he switches this season or not is on him. This is the season that the fence-sitters for McD are going to fall to one of the other side. It seems clear where that's headed, but who knows, maybe he'll have an epiphany or something. We should have been an offense-centric team the past four seasons. Our D, while impressive during the regular season, has absolutely sucked in the playoffs. I have no idea why everyone is harping on it as if without it our playoff success chances are limited. Our offense has had to overcome our defense in all but one playoff game under McD in the past three seasons. Or offense has no significant injuries. Play ball!

BTW, I'll put it another way. Also, I couldn't care less if I'm mocked or end up being wrong. That's not why I'm here. I do my best to think my takes out, and when I am wrong I don't mind owning up to it. Anyway, last season when we had a negative TO ratio, i.e., when we were on the short end of TOs, we were 9-4. This season to date, we're 2-3. Not sure there's a lot of optimism that we'll go 7-1 in games where we're on the short end this season so far should it come to that. Make more sense now?

Burrow seems to be healed. All eyes on McD to see what he has up his sleeve, if anything. The ball's in his court.

Not at all. I thought the point was clear. Maybe it wasn't. I'll restate. The only win against a decent team was against Miami. It was a two possession game until Mostert fumbled giving us a FG just before the half to put us up by 17. Say he doesn't fumble, and they go down and kick a FG before the half instead. Hardly unreasonable given the way we've played in pretty much every other game since that one. We're up by 11 rather than 17 at the half. Suppose Tua doesn't throw that pick in the mid-3rd that we converted to a TD already in FG range. Suppose they drive down and get a FG or perhaps even a TD. Instead of us being up by 21, we're up by 11 or even only 7 at that point and it's a completely different game. That's what those 2 TOs did for us. I don't think it was wrong, simply putting the perspective of those TOs in there. There's absolutely nothing in our play dossier since then that screams out once we're up by 7-10 the game's in hand. LOL If people have a different perspective, great. It's not mine. And given that that emotionally hyped game, common for us early in the season, was our only solid game over an opponent that's even going to sniff the playoffs much less making them, to me it's relevant. Not sure how else to put it. TOs, and there shouldn't be any disagreement, are not something that can be counted on for winning games. "Creating TOs" is obviously good. But if I were to tell you at the beginning of the season that we'd only win games when we have a + TO margin, how confident would you be in our record? Either way, great, so let's agree that it's wrong. It's still way way way out of the context of the original point. Let's see if McD can deliver anything even close to what came out of the tunnel for the Miami game. Many will be pleasantly surprised if that's the case. But we'll have to start winning games without the assistance of TOs at some point if we expect to do anything in the playoffs.

Their issues appear to be re: their offense though, they don't have a ton of injuries there. Aiyuk and Kittle are still great receiving options.

Burrow was 28-32. I suppose there's always hope that they spent some of themselves on today's win. Either way, McD will have had 10 days to have the team prepared. They'd better hit the field looking the part. How'd the Bengal OL look? Did you watch the game? Niners have a formidable Front 7.

Well great, then, I guess we can expect our last 9 games to reflect that one then. Looks like we're headed for 9-0 the last half. LOL Honestly, the things that get nitpicked. We beat four siht teams, and Miami, a huge rival that we've owned anyway, after getting up for the game as if it's the Super Bowl for us (HINT: could be part of our/McD's problem), lose to two other teams that are 3-3 and 2-5, while having played the second easiest schedule in the league up to now, and people take issue with a game in which we got 2 TOs giving us the ball at the MIami 31 and 25 yard lines for 10 points, the second of which only, put the game away late in the 3rd. Seems to me that without those it's an 11 point game with 20 minutes or so remaining. But hey, what do I know. Let's see if we can match that effort even once more this season. Counting on it appears to be foolish however given the fact that we seem to have hit steady-state performance and opponents have deciphered McD's genius Ds with Dorsey's Offenses putting up an average of fewer than 21 points per game the last four games.

OK, since it's so taxing for you, forget that game. Apparently you think that beating a 3-5, two 3-4, and one 2-6 team, none of which have positive point-differentials, is a positive. That's fine, someone's gotta think that I suppose. Anyway, that was the primary point. If you want to extrapolate an entire season on one win, feel free. It's not in my wheelhouse of competent analysis to do that.

We can discuss a hundred things that are unrelated to the initial point.

I'm trying to figure out where that question came from. It's entirely out of context with anything that I wrote. The entire point is that two TOs setting us up for 10 points all but inside Miami's Red Zone gave us that decisive win, with both teams putting up similar yards and performance otherwise. The primary point is that Miami's the only team that doesn't currently have a losing record and a negative point-differential, that we've beaten. That's it. Really. Relying on TOs is not a recipe for playoff success. Plain and simple.

I hear ya, but we can't have 9 more "competitive efforts" and go 2-7. Some of those competitive efforts need to result in wins, and some of those in division and conference games at this point. I never for an instant thought that there'd be a chance we'd go 0-2 against either NE or the Jets w/ Wilson at QB.

My bad. The NFL Gamebook must be wrong then. It says that MIami had 222 yards and 11 1st-Downs in the second half. I'll telly Roger in the morning and have him correct that.

I'm actually comfortable making it as a wild-card this season. Takes the pressure off, and gets rid of this notion that we need the #1 seed to beat KC thereby putting all kinds of pressure on ourselves during the season. IMO there's a lot of mental wear-n-tear that goes alongside that. Would like to see how we perform as dogs in the playoffs and hope we can get a hot streak after getting in as the 6th or 7th seed. Hell, we haven't been able to do it as the #2 or #3 seed.

Well, OK, but they put up 393 Yards in a very balanced approach. If they don't turn the ball over to hand us 10 points, pretty literally with us actually losing a yard on one drive before kicking a FG, and convert both of those drives into 6 of 10 themselves, it's a pretty close game. We only put up 21 more yards.

Right, and like I said, with help from 2 TOs leading to 10 points and otherwise the game being played comparably on both sides, actually with Miami playing more balanced offense even. Think what you want, not trying to change your mind. But fine, it was a blowout. Still, our only great win over a team that has a reasonable chance at making the playoffs. Again, we tend to get up for our home opener and any big home games in September under McD. Then we seem to level off, and "leveled off" is where we seem to be now in a steady-state. Given our last four games, averaging not even 21 PPG, I don't know how it's possible to troll in the context of the post I responded to. It wasn't directed at me, just sayin'. We're hardly playing inspiring football in our steady-state status.

Well, there was a veiled implication in there. Agree, let's hope.

Trolls? We should also have easily been able to beat the Jets sans Rodgers, New England with Mac Jones, and the Giants with a plate full of slop there. We lost two of those games and barely beat the third, and didn't play like we should have. I'm not sure it's possible to troll in that regard at this point. The only team with a postive Point-Differential and a record better than 3-4 that we've beaten is Miami, and they played us comparably and apart from two TOs could just as easily have won that game.

Biggest game of the next four and among the three biggest remaining games, @ KC and @ Miami being the other two. We're already behind the other playoff contenders in Conference record at 2-3. A loss here would make any tiebreakers on conference record a longshot. Not to mention, besides KC, our biggest AFC nemesis. We'll have had 10 full days to prepare. Let's see if McD & Co. can cook something up that look a little different and fitted for Cincy.

If we play the way we've played the past three weeks we can easily go 1-3.

The post-season narrative on McD is going to be reliant upon our making the playoffs, first, and secondly, how we do therein. Assuming that us getting in, even if only as a 7th seed, is a given, not losing in the Wild-Card or Divisional round will be paramount.