cage

Every team in the NFL once their eliminated assess their roster, particularly the QB position. In light of the Bills / Chiefs game especially, probably every team is considering whether they will ever be able to compete with either of those QBs with the one they have.... is Tannehill, Carr, Prescott, Tua, Mac Jones good enough? Can they just be above average, very good, or MUST we have an elite QB in order to have any chance to win?? I want to know that the same evaluation is being given to coaching in light of the mistakes. McD has done great things for the Bills, particularly from where he started. He may be better than above average, he may be very good. But is he good enough to win championships? Not just get lucky once, maybe?? Is he Derek Carr or Ryan Tannehill? Beane has to figure that out. He did it this past season in a much lesser way when he made a move to upgrade backup QB with Tribusky, letting Barclay go.

I meant outside of Allen and Mahomes (+Watson, but he's not playing). Is that your only contribution to what has been a pretty good debate here? Save it...

Fair enough, perhaps some of that context should be in follow-up if he's trying to swat the question away as McD did yesterday. I really didn't like how it was handled given the context described. I need a more serious answer that shows they get it. NFL careers are fleeting and they just booted a whole season's effort. If a player had done that it might have cost them on getting re-signed, $$ on their next signing or a decision that "we need to move on and improve at that position". If Allen had choked that way, everyone would be questioning whether he was worth $40m/yr. Look at the reviews on Dak Prescott from the previous week after his screw-up, who is the only other member of $40m club.

To your point, ditto on Titans and Colts game. We couldn't stop either team once they got rolling

Its a serious point. Guys like Morse, Hyde, Poyer, Diggs are at the peak of their prime. Not sure if guys like Hughes, Addison, Beasley will be back, but teams only have so many chances....

The opinion that I expressed was in response to some else posting "there's nothing to "fix"". Just giving a couple examples that jump out at me. I didn't push an opinion in the initial post.

I'm just giving my opinion. I'm happy to hear his. He knows tons more about football than I do. I'm angry about McD's "execution problems and I'll leave it at that", which simply an unacceptable answer under the circumstances I laid out at the start of this thread.

Is that something that is teachable... by now? Parcels, Reid, Payton, Belichick constantly outfoxed other teams to pull out games like this.

And its not just those 13 seconds. The loss to Jaguars is the reason that last week's game wasn't in Buffalo. Totally unprepared for Colts. They allowed Patriots to manufacture a win on MNF game where one of the issues was strictly sticking to deferring on kick-off instead of focusing on the wind in Q4.

Further two of the three teams that are left made consequential moves before trade deadline to help give themselves and extra push. Rams brought in OBJ and Von Miller. Chiefs brought in Melvin Ingram. All have made a difference in the playoffs

I think we need a new Defensive Coordinator and own up to the failings of in-game strategy. There's lots of examples all season (and last) related to issues in these two areas

I hope that reporters are preparing their questions. Do not just ask "What happened in the last 13 seconds". Set the context: Brandon, the QB that you drafted, that fans have been waiting 25 years for and you signed to a $40m+ per year extension just lived up to everyones imagination and put on an all-world performance. You got knocked from the playoffs for the 2nd straight year to the same team who may be headed to its 3rd straight SB. The manner of the loss will live in infamy in the team's history right there with the worst losses we've absorbed. You would have been the Super Bowl favorite from among the four teams left. How do you evaluate what exactly happened and what has to change to fix it when you start all over again next year?

This was a really good write-up from The Athletic detailing the feelings of Jim Rikhoff the CBS producer of last nights game and why it was so special https://theathletic.com/3086111/2022/01/24/producing-the-wild-bills-chiefs-finish-a-goodbye-to-john-madden-sean-paytons-future-nfl-playoff-media-thoughts/ A few select parts: Drained from a three-hour car ride following a 2.5-hour flight from Kansas City after producing a four-hour broadcast of a classic football game, CBS NFL producer Jim Rikhoff arrived at his Western Connecticut home at 3:30 a.m. on Monday morning and headed to his outdoor deck that overlooks a river. He needed to decompress and clear his mind. “I just sat out there for five minutes and tried to digest everything that had happened,” Rikhoff said. What had happened was Rikhoff produced one of the great NFL games in history, an impossibly dramatic 42-36 overtime win by the Chiefs over the Bills that included Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City driving 44 yards in 13 seconds for a game-tying 49-yard field goal. There were 25 points in the final 1:54, a span that included four lead changes. Rikhoff has been at CBS Sports since 1985. He called Sunday’s game one of the four greatest events he has worked professionally, a list that also includes the AFC Championship Game between the Patriots and Chiefs in January 2019 (New England won 37-31 in overtime) and Tiger Woods winning The Masters in 1997 and 2019. I asked Rikhoff to take me inside the production truck after Josh Allen’s fourth touchdown pass to Gabriel Davis to give Buffalo what looked like the game-winning play. .... On the game-winning play in overtime, Rikhoff said the production truck knew it was a touchdown pretty much immediately. “As we were cutting around the whole celebration, I did see Andy Reid with two or three other officials and I could tell it was a semi-serious conversation,” Rieckhoff said. “We had four angles of the catch and it looked pretty good to me. But when I saw Andy Reid, I was thinking, ‘Oh God, let’s not have a bizarre finish.’ We had a great shot of Josh Allen in disbelief. It kind of reminded me of when Aaron Rodgers walked off the field in their game. It was almost like the Packers couldn’t believe what happened. Just stunned. Josh Allen played so great and had a look of disbelief. As Ryan and I are looking at replays, (director) Mike Arnold is cutting live to all those sequences. He’s shooting all the primary players in this movie or play. I think he’s the best NFL director I’ve ever worked with.” After games, members of a production team want to leave the setting as soon as possible. Often, they want a mental break from the experience. But that was not the case for Rikhoff, who spent much of the time after the game answering texts, emails and calls. “I got more texts, emails and more calls than for anything I’ve ever done professionally in my life,” Rikhoff said. “It took me at least two hours to get through them, and I know (Nantz) went through the same thing. People were just so excited about what a great football game it was. When I was on my deck in the middle of the night, it was the first time I could really soak it in and savor what had happened. I just thought for a while in the silence about how it was a really cool thing to be part of. I think it’s arguably the greatest weekend of NFL football ever.”

Honestly... let players develop. What were we saying about Singletary, Knox and Taron Johnson not long ago? People were ready to cut Singletary just 6 games ago and Knox at the end of last year. Everyone spent the whole offseason screaming for Ertz. There's no good reason to be that dismissive of players based just on their rookie year. Maybe we have firm conclusions about Cody Ford at this point, but let some of these others develop and grow.

Good clarification. Wasn't aware of that rule as I had thought of the exact same strategy. I guess I should get some sleep....

I guess then that's the test on how great of a head coach McD can be? A great leader can also make bold decisions on change that is clearly needed. I definitely agree w/ this thread on going after Fangio and launching the next level of growth for this team

Well the starter for the previous few years had been Tyrod. If you don't believe in that type of QB as "the Man" then it makes sense to cross off LJ.

This... plus the percentages only calculate to 18%

This feels like the poll about when Tribusky will enter the game against the Jaguars.... moderators, please shut this down

Though his drafting w/ Raiders was marginal at best

Wow, I was just reacting to what I thought was a flippant tweet when I started this thread. But then......

I think Belichick may be calling him the Angel of Death today. I think it was about to come out during his post game press conference....

You're correct on the context, which actually makes it an even more impressive play. Though that detail doesn't call into question whether he's football guru. Like him or not, he clearly is.

I think the connection is that he's so deadly out of structure and can still destroy defenses despite some poor play calling

Not a bad nickname for Allen.....