Thurman#1

This is an immensely poorly written sentence. No, history won't change. Of course, it's written. Might be interpreted differently. Won't change. But could historical trends be broken, particularly historical trends in a pretty damn small sample? Hell, yeah! And you yourself point out two guys who've already done it. Oh, and you forgot Belichick and his five years with the Browns, arguably the GOAT. And Coughin and his eight years of being thought just not good enough in Jax. If you think Reid with the Eagles just wasn't good enough to win a Super Bowl and that Reid with the Chiefs was, well, I'd like to show you some swamp land, uh, I mean vacation property I've got available. An awful lot of those results come from the fact that the coach wasn't quite in the right situation earlier, or that things just went against him. Footballs do bounce funny. A few key plays can make all the difference, a TE might drop a pass that's right in his hands, or Levi Wallace might not look back at Poyer and figure he's far more forward than he actually was rather than actually checking. Stuff like this happens, damn it. What the history reflects is that only one guy wins each year, that fairly few coaches have been in a great position with the right pieces in place to win, and that most probably every year there are three or four coaches good enough to win but that only one actually can win. It's the thing that makes this so goddamn frustrating. This team wasn't comprehensively beaten by the Chiefs except in the first game in 2020. It's been right there for them and stuff has happened. Although if they could get a frickin' excellent pass rusher ...

Disagree with you about Rousseau's motor. He's there every game. His inconsistency comes more from how teams play him, who he's against and what the defensive and offensive game plans are.

Teams that run a lot and are successful at it are going to look like that on offense. Their yards will go down as they run a larger percentage of run plays, but if they run efficiently it could easily lead to as many scores. There is indeed a reason that offenses and defenses are typically ranked by yards gained/allowed. That reason is that those stats are far better at isolating defensive contributions from offensive contributions and vice versa. Scoring is greatly affected by field position. Yards, not nearly so much. Agreed about fumble percentages. We did very well in recovery percentages this year and some of that is luck. On the other hand, some of it is probably down to our defense tending to force them more downfield with the peanut punches. Downfield recoveries are more likely going to be defensive just because there are more of them in the area and the offensive guys in the area are looking for someone to block while the defenders are looking at the guy with the ball and are more likely to see the ball out. We went from 55.32% in 2023 to 68..09% in 2024 (best in the league). But give us the 2023 percentage this year and it's still only a difference of about four to five TOs, total. We got lucky with fumble recoveries this year. But what was really good is that we had the 2nd lowest number of own fumbles in the league, and tied for the highest number of opponent fumbles. That's not nearly so luck-based a result.

I'd love to see a link on that, that they "HAVE to make at least ONE penalty call per game. Otherwise [the official is] rated poorly." I'm willing to believe it, if you can back it up, but I've never heard of such a thing before. Where'd you get it?

Um, OK. I don't see anyone placated. Or distracted. Nor, as I pointed out, is there any inconsistency between the two strategies of having two or three top flight talents on each side of the ball and not having any top flight wide receivers. But, um, OK, I suppose. You're an excellent poster. Let's agree to disagree on this one, I guess. See you around the boards.

No, it absolutely isn't. Or at least unless you can point out where McDermott said that at least one of those difference makers must be at WR. And he didn't. It absolutely isn't mutually exclusive. Fair enough on your second paragraph. I would agree with that, with a few provisos, like that absolutely nobody on the team had any juice in that Bengals game. The players simply weren't good enough on that day. And probably the 2020 team wasn't quite there yet either.

Um, no it doesn't. That's you and what you believe. It's not McDermott. The question was specifically about that and he answered it pretty clearly. He believes a team, to be at the highest level, needs "two to three on each side of the ball that are top 1 to 3, 1 to 5 ar their position. IMO we've got that. Not really on the DL which is frustrating, but outside of Allen IMO Taron, Milano, maybe Benford, Cook maybe, probably Spencer Brown. It's arguable, but those guys are in that area. Nobody on the DL since Von's injury. Ed Oliver has games when he looks that good, but not often enough.

Those two things are absolutely not mutually exclusive.

That's nonsense. Benford, Taron, Milano, sorry, man, that's just dumb. Tre, Cook, Spencer Brown, Von Miller before the injury. Just dumb. Any on the level of Josh? No. But there are only about 5 - 7 players in the league, if that many, on Josh's level.

Agreed, not that much. But some. Hell, we make those tush pushes we win the game. But drafting upside is what you're generally left with when you're drafting 29th. It's the way of the world, unfortunately. As for drafting rotational linemen, that battle's long lost. Everyone rotates these days. To different extents, but that's what the league looks like. And IMO this defense needs LBs who can run like crazy. And guys who are big and can run are generally long gone by slot 29. Probably. Could we also have won with the same coaching decisions and better execution? Maybe the TE holds onto that pass as one of several examples? Probably. It was damn close.

I'm not buying that the Chiefs D shows up all the time. Did they keep us down yesterday? How about the 13 seconds game? They generally can't stop Allen, but they slow him down a bit. But we can't stop Mahomes, we slow him down in many, but not enough, damn it. Look, you asked us to show one game they were elite. I did that. You didn't say, "Show me a game where they were elite, but only against an elite QB, not counting times when we were behind, oh, and don't count pick sixes or turnovers." Sure, throw enough qualifiers against the wall and you can eliminate any games. But that's not because the defense wasn't elite. It's because you threw up qualifiers to avoid considering those games. Oh, and we were never behind in that Ravens game. The Ravens scored a total of three points, and we kicked the first field goal of the game. And even if we had been behind, that has nothing to do with anything we're arguing about. Our offense only scored 10 points, but that's not on our defense. What our defense was responsible for was holding the Ravens to three and then scoring seven for us on the pick six. They were elite in those two games. Those two teams made the playoffs, and our D was elite in those two games, which is pretty damn good when they haven't had that many playoff games. The Pats had the sixth highest scoring offense that year. The Ravens were 7th that year we held them to three points. To be elite in two is impressive. The Bills D has been a bend but not break D that overall does the fundamentals brilliantly. You wanna argue that the D in that Miami game wasn't good? I wouldn't argue too hard. But it's not eking out a win when the Fins on their last two drive are absolutely choked out by the Bills defense. The defense hasn't been able to hold down the Chiefs in the playoffs. That's been their problem. And as three championships shows, very few teams have. Not that that makes this damn game hurt any less. Two-time and possibly three-time MVP Lamar Jackson says hi. He's a quarteback, isn't he? The defense has done quite well overall in the playoffs against QBs not named Mahomes. You can argue the Bengals game, but that was a defense playing with both hands behind their back in terms of both injuries and the whole team just playing like their emotional reserves were utterly and completely drained.

Elite, not many. But how many elite games does any team have when you give only a small playoff sample. Was the Chiefs D elite yesterday? Good to very good? Pretty much all of them except the Chiefs games and that Bengals game. As for elite ... the Pats game in the 2021 playoffs. It was 33-3 late in the third quarter. The Pats had scored 10 points till they scored another in garbage time after the two minute warning which made the score 47 - 17. Micah Hyde had that insane interception early. That and the 17 - 3 victory against the Ravens where Taron Johnson had the 103 yard pick six.

"Grossly" overstates it, but we had deficiencies there, no doubt about it. Also deficiencies in execution. We didn't play or coach well enough. We were good, very good. But you have to be absolutely excellent to beat the Chiefs. We weren't. In the playoffs we've learned to expect so much from Josh. He played very well, sometimes incredibly. That throw to Kincaid was just unbelievable. But he also ruined the first drive and hurt a few others. But he didn't have a great game that went from start to finish. Nor did anyone else on the team.

Till Allen leaves. This year was a transition year when we shouldn't have been as good as we were. If we can get this far this year, we can do it every year Allen plays to his standard. That's not to say that we can get past the Chiefs. Jesus, that stung. And we didn't deserve to win. Your last sentence, if not trolling, is dumb.

Well, fine. You're not using the term correctly in that case. But that's up to you. YAC is a statistic. It's a number. That's how it was conceived. It's not a subjective term. It just isn't. Again, you want to find out who's good at YAC? All you have to do is ... find out who's good at YAC. There is a list. The good ones are near the top. The bad ones are at the bottom. The elite ones are the top few. Again, it's not a subjective term. You want to value something different, and there's nothing wrong with that. At this point we're talking past each other. You value something else. What you are valuing isn't YAC. I think you've got a perfect right to value that more. But what you're valuing more isn't YAC. It's something you're creating in your mind. The point is made. He's elite at YAC. He's not elite at whatever you're valuing. I think it's reasonable for you to personally value someone like Brian Thomas more, either in general or in terms of some standard you have. But it ain't YAC. There's a list. That's YAC. It's Yards After Catch, an objective value that can be quantified into a number, and is. 'Nuff said for me.

You're trying to pretend that YAC means something other than YAC. There's a reason they call YAC YAC. That being that YAC is YAC. A yard is a yard in football. You get ten of them you've got a first down. A receiver who can take a short pass, a pass putting very little pressure on the QB, and turn it into a really nice gain on the play is wildly valuable to his QB. That's what Shakir does consistently. By being terrific at getting YAC. You personally value one kind of YAC over another? OK, fine, very reasonable. You don't think that Shakir is elite at YAC? That's kinda nuts. He is. YAC is a stat. It's not an opinion-based word. It's real easy to tell who's good at YAC. Look a the YAC list. He might not be good at the kind of YAC you value most. Again, reasonable. But he's elite at YAC.

Heh heh.

The thing is, we've got a QB on a second contract, a very highly paid QB. I agree with you that that keeping the salary cap squarely in mind when deciding what FAs to bring in is a strategy, one that is sensible in the situation. And one of the best ways teams with that situation cope is by not breaking the bank for a Justin Jefferson type. Not all of them do it that way, but many do, Belichick and the Pats included. TEs are cheaper, so they use TEs. They do fill in with FA WRs if they don't have to pay too much. Maybe you're right that they would break the bank if they could, all things being equal. But all things aren't equal, the salary cap is a factor. And most SB winners and dynasties in the salary cap era have had great QBs and managed to get really good production with good receivers (and sometimes great TEs) and generally avoided breaking the bank at that position, particularly to bring in FAs from other teams. Tyreek is the most recent example of not breaking the bank at WR paying off very well for a team that wins Super Bowls. Oh, and efficient is a lot better than nice. It's what everyone is striving for. I'd guess they'll be striving for upgrades at WR as they always do and should do. But that we won't see any top ten WR salaries unless it's someone they drafted working out spectacularly well.

Elite YAC guys are guys who get an elite amount of YAC. That's Shakir. Glad we can agree that he's "one of the best in the NFL when it comes to turning a 2 yard pass into a 8 - 12 yard play." I think you're right about that. YAC isn't hard to understand or a difficult interpretation. It's all in the initials, Yards After Catch. He's elite. Fair enough that you'd like to see him get more big gainers but a lot of that is simply that against the Bills most Ds are playing Cover2 or Cover 3 and have more guys over the top of most plays. Anyway, I love having him on the team as you obviously do.

They'll acknowledge that he's a legit #1 when it happens. It hasn't yet. It's no insult.

Equally silly is pretending all .500 records are the same. It's idiocy. Again, you have to go way the hell out of your way into Wackytown to suggest that the 2017 Jax game and the 2019 Houston game should be held against McDermott. Is there anyone here - anyone at all - who thinks that if the 2017 Jags or the 2019 Texans played any of the 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 or for that matter the 2024 Bills either of them wins? Of course not. We lost those games because they rebuilt and hadn't yet put together the team we know today.

He's go Wildly irrational, no. Pretty unreasonable, yes. It's essentially the Chiefs. We haven't been able to get past them. In McDermott's first three years he hadn't gotten a good team together yet. Nor had Josh really become Josh yet. The Sugar Rush Josh who fell apart against the Texans wasn't the Josh Allen we know. Nor was the Tyrod Taylor team in Year one in any way a team anyone would suspect would beat a good team in the playoffs. After that, when we had a real competitive team, it's the Chiefs. You can say what about the Bengals, and if you want to count that also, it's not unfair. But the whole team had a horrible off day, something that has never really happened otherwise in the playoffs. Saw today's Buffalo Plus episode and they mentioned this, that that day in the locker room they saw a team that was absolutely exhausted, that their tank was empty, and that they've never seen anything like it. It was the year of Hamlin's death, Knox's brother's death and all the rest of it. The players themselves said the same thing in the locker room, that they simply didn't have any juice. If you want to count that, I guess go ahead. But basically, it's the Chiefs. Adding in the games in his first three years when we simply did not have a team that anyone thought should be seriously competitive is not reasonable in evaluating McDermott. He'll be back the next couple of years, win or lose. Which is as it should be. Unless he loses the locker room or something like that.

So, you think there's a possibility that they don't even interview Sanders? I just get sick of hearing every interview of a black coach being called a Rooney Rule interview. Pretty much every interview, at least any interview conducted by a competent organization, is about more than the Rooney Rule. There's a ton you can learn from anyone even if they're not one of the top candidates. And every once in a while a guy will surprise and get a job he's not expected to get.

With $15.4M in dead cap, cutting Von saves us about $2M. If he's still our best pass rusher, which appears possible, Von may well be here another year, particularly if he goes along with some kind of renegotiation. He could easily be gone - he's old - but it's still not a foregone conclusion. Wouldn't be a bit surprised to see them go DL in the first, if the right guy is available at the right pick.

They don't need a Rooney Rule interview. Sanders is the main candidate.