Low Positive

If this was the regular season, I would say that given how McDermott treats injuries that they would not play. But this is the playoffs, so I think both will give it a go.

Exactly. Jacksonville and the Giants are the only teams left "just happy to be there." The Bengals are the defending AFC Champs who waited all season to get back to the Super Bowl to "right a wrong." You could tell that they were not focused during the first quarter of the regular season, like they just wanted to skip ahead to January.

That doesn't make any sense. All the pressure is on both teams. It's win or go home.

Next are they going to ask Chad Johnson what he thinks? How about Anthony Munoz?

Yeah. They didn't lose Jonah Williams until the 2nd quarter of the last game.

Good analysis, but I think that people who live in WNY don't hear how thick these guys accents are.

Last year, Josh Allen played the New England Patriots in a prime time playoff game in front of a full house. He played a perfect game against the #2 ranked defense.

So he's gonna pull a full Peterman and then come back against the Chiefs?

Josh Allen proved their way of projecting college performance to the NFL to be wrong. The debate was so heated entering the draft because Josh wasn't just a QB prospect. He was a living embodiment of the differences in the ways that analytics guys evaluate prospects and the ways that scouts analyze prospects. In other words, do you dig deep into the stats of college performance, normalize the data to make apples to apples comparisons and then use that data to build complex statistical models to project college prospects to the NFL or do you draft for traits. The old-school guys won on this one, and that why these analytics guys can't let this go.

That was the biggest prime time game that had been played in Cincinnati in a long time. The whole city was jacked up.

Mina Kimes has a very hot anti-Allen take on the LeBatard show the morning after the first round in 2018. That colors all of her analysis. Keyshawn and Greenie are forever Jets so that colors their analysis. Rex is still salty about being fired here, so that colors his analysis. It's really not hard to figure these things out.

I've watched every game that both teams have played this year. I don't know how you could come to this conclusion by watching both teams play or by looking at the stats. Yes, the Bengals are playing "cleaner" but they also are playing risk-free football. That's how you get 234 total yards in a playoff game, needing a 99 yard fumble return for a TD. They also beat the Bucs with 237 total yards of offense, requiring turnovers on FOUR STRAIGHT POSSESSIONS

and in one fewer game.

I don’t know. But I do know that these are the consequential games in January that I always wished that the Bills were playing in. It’s been a while since we’ve had a home playoff game of this magnitude. LFG!!!!!

Strange, isn't it. Once these talking heads get a narrative in their heads, they look for all else to support that narrative. It's really just basic confirmation bias. It's nothing new. Here is Francis Bacon writing in 1620:

Oh! Did Lamar force Greg Roman to "retire" so that he could run a more conventional offense to silence the haters?

I don't like hot takes, even when they go our way. Of course they have all the chance in the world. But then so do the Bills.

Maybe this, but he was also never McDaniel's guy.

They put Xavier Rhodes on that earlier this year.

Like this one

It goes beyond that. The Bengals keep winning playoff games in the most dramatic fashion. It really feels to their players and fans like they cannot lose in the AFC playoffs now. That play to win the game last week was rabbit's foot up the backside type of stuff.

That's the way a cover 2 system is supposed to work.

With all the angst that this game brought, I forgot how crazy Dawson's TD catch was. Just insane.

🖐️Are we voting?

Cause he was clearly the problem...