PBF81

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.

At this point it might do us good to hobble into the playoffs, as long as we can get hot in January. Not that that's an odds-on bet, just sayin'. We've tried the traditional approach and it's failed us twice. We're good enough to make the playoffs pretty much under any circumstances. Maybe not focusing so much on going 15-2 during the regular season and getting the #1 see will help us out come January. We'll find out very soon.

Well, let's keep in mind that their offense is missing last season's #1 WR and what they now have as a #1 (which one is it even?) makes Davis look like Moss. This wasn't a well-kept secret entering the season. LOL Their top WR was on pace for a 740/7 season, and I wouldn't bet a dime that any of their WRs will cross the 800 yard mark.

It doesn't? That's funny, having Diggs and "no real #2 WR" seems to make an enormous impact in Buffalo. Must be the thinner air in Denver.

Not sure I'd mimic our fans, we play @ KC in six weeks. Comments about Mahomes as people have been talking about Allen, Dorsey, etc., could very well come back to bite us in the a$$. Bad juju. How embarassing would that be.

Same thing that was wrong with them entering the season, they have siht for WRs. Entering this week their leading WR was on pace for 740 yards and 7 TDs. Their average scoring is down 4 ppg from last season and they've only scored more than 23 points three times, and more than 27 twice, and both of those times were against low-end Ds. 25th and 28th. Their 27 point game was against the 20th ranked D. People here complain about Davis, but Davis would be better than anyone on their team. We have Diggs on top of that.

I was torturing some benefit of the doubt. If we're either beaten by a worse team or lose due to not playing our best, he'll make his own bed.

Agree The laugh emoji was re your first sentence. Und now's the time on Sprockets ven ve hammer Nick Wright into za strudel.

One of the things that should register with everyone, is that some of the issues that arise, we've been discussing for several seasons. That says something as well.

Way to miss that point entirely.

One game with marginal adjustments, at home, against a team like Tampa isn't significant. Question though, since we saw some things that we haven't seen on anything close to a regular basis, how is it that they just came out now, after all this time? Not a good look. The rest of the season isn't going to be McD's friend, and he's now fighting what appears to be an uphill battle against the national media. Nothing we say or do is going to matter, we can merely bicker over who's on whose lawn. If he can't make the Conference CG nothing is going to change perception wise. And this can easily go from this to much worse to where it becomes obvious even to his stalwart apologists that he needs to go.

Something was gonna change re: support for McD, one way or another this season, seven seasons in. One can also only live on backing into the playoffs in one's inaugural season, as the worst of the other 7th-seed contenders, for so long. After 7 seasons, McD's playoff track record here is all but identical to that on Carolina when he was the DC under Rivera. There, 1 WC round loss 2 D round losses 1 SB loss Here, 2 WC round losses 2 D round losses 1 CC game lots Considering the difference in QBs and records of the two teams during those 6 & 7 year stretches, that's ridiculous.