The Frankish Reich

Funny, but given the weather and Gold's limited range, wasnt there a guy back at the goal line to return a short kick?

He's immunized against playoff success

That block never would have happened to Matt Haack because he would've dropped the long snap.

Never! In the great "who deserves more credit, Brady or Belichick?' derby, it's now Brady ahead by a Secretariat at the Belmont type lead. And it gets worse if, heaven forbid, Brady gets another ring. Egotist that he is, he's gonna have one more big move left with Kraft's manipulations before he hangs it up.

And that's a big takeaway from the Wild Card round. The NFC East is still garbage. The Eagles turned in a truly pathetic performance, and the Cowboys game proved that the 3rd best team in the NFC West (well, in retrospect the 2nd best team in the NFC West) is at a minimum on an even footing with them.

Yeah, that was weird. I guess if LA is held to a FG the rest of the game and the Cards make 3 TDs/2-point conversions it's 31-24. But still, that's overthinking it a bit.

Kyler looks a little scared out there. Meanwhile Matt "Never Won a Playoff Game" Stafford seems completely in control.

Really close but the official was right there on the sideline next to the 2nd receiver so he had the best view.

What is that idiotic KC mascot thing? Does it exist because, well, you can't really have a Chief anymore? Why not just change your team's name and get a mascot that makes some kind of sense. Sick of seeing it dancing around.

I am still watching this garbage game only to see if any important Chiefs player is injured. Does that make me a horrible person?

Our non-dome will not have that problem. City Cloudy Days a Year % of Days Buffalo, New York 311 85 Seattle, Washington 308 84 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 306 84 Rochester, New York 304 83

No. I mean, I don't think so. The dreaded PFF grades this year for our Guards: Feliciano 59.7 Boettger 59.8 Ford 47.4 Bates 64 I didn't include Williams because it looks like the only score I have access to blends his snaps at T and G. But FYI he's at 67.5. I use PFF because it's readily available, not because it's authoritative in any way. But this basically agrees with the eye test. We found a guy playing at an adequate level (Bates) - kind of a B-/C+ type level of PFF's scale - who filled in for guys playing at a replacement (D) or sub-replacement (F) level. That makes you better right away. It doesn't mean it makes you set for the future. EDIT: I guess I should say that you can't be above average everywhere and still under the cap. If Morse retires, Bates could move to C. I don't know what to say about his skills as a C, but if he can handle that move he'd be perfectly adequate. Dawkins got stronger/better as the season went on, Brown got much better as he got a little experience, and Williams looks better suited to play at RG than RT. So maybe, just maybe you've got 4 good performers coming back with Feliciano as a perfectly acceptable C/G backup. If you can sign/draft one plus performer that's a pretty good O line after all. And who knows, Doyle may be more than an offensive lineman reporting as eligible ...

I'm watching Jimmy G., who came damn close to winning a SB. Tua and maybe Mac strike me as being on that level. NOTE: we would've killed to have had a young QB "on that level" at any time between 2005 and 2017.

From the wiki page for Amon: Amun (US: /ˈɑːmən/; also Amon, Ammon, Amen; Ancient Egyptian: jmn, reconstructed as /jaˈmaːnuw/ (Old Egyptian and early Middle Egyptian) → /ʔaˈmaːnəʔ/ (later Middle Egyptian) → /ʔaˈmoːn/ (Late Egyptian); Coptic: ⲁⲙⲟⲩⲛ; Greek Ἄμμων Ámmōn, Ἅμμων Hámmōn) was a major ancient Egyptian deity who appears as a member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad. Amun was attested from the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amunet. With the 11th Dynasty (c. 21st century BC), Amun rose to the position of patron deity of Thebes by replacing Montu.[1] After the rebellion of Thebes against the Hyksos and with the rule of Ahmose I (16th century BC), Amun acquired national importance, expressed in his fusion with the Sun god, Ra, as Amun-Ra (alternatively spelled Amon-Ra or Amun-Re). Yep. You can't beat the fusion of Amon and the Sun God. Equanimeous, take a back seat to your brother.

Blaine has only made $24 million in his career. Chase Daniel: $39 million. And never really had the opportunity to massively fail like Gabbert. He's still the GOAT.

Blaine Gabbert fascinates me. 11 year NFL career despite never being anything other than awful. I mean, EJ Manuel objectively is a better QB and he was done after 5 years.

But do we get to see Blaine Gabbert?

You have a point. The Eagles are no better or worse than the Dolphins. Actually worse I think.

Same old Brady, same old NFC East "playoff team"

You mean it's too late to sign/activate Shaq Lawson? Actually I kind of wish they'd got that done now.

Eagles 2021, WFT 2020 ... not seeing much of a difference.

Driving home listening to the national post-game radio broadcast: analysts mention at least 3 times that the Patriots need to get "younger and faster," particularly on defense. I haven't tried to check for the offense and defense separately, but the "need to be younger" thing doesn't seem to pan out. Average age of the Bills 53 man at the start of the season: 26.3 Of the Patriots: 26.5 Maybe they just need to get better (rather than younger or faster)

1. Offensive line play is something that can typically be fixed during the course of a season. Sometimes it's new personnel (Bates), new blocking schemes, and/or new offensive strategy in general; typically it's a combination of all of the above. 2. Coaches tend to overvalue mediocre/replacement level players.* Feliciano, Ford, Boettger: all poor performers this year. The value of continuity is often less than the value of improved individual performance. Daboll was kind of dragged into trying new personnel by injuries. Not surprisingly, the result was better play. *As a kind of test, I've been informally tracking the performance of classic replacement-level QBs - guys signed off the street and forced into action due to injury/COVID, etc. We've seen a few this year (Josh Johnson, Garrett Gilbert) and of course many over the last decade or so (Thad Lewis anyone?). Typically there either is no clear drop-off in performance from the nominal starter, or not much of a drop-off. Small sample, but highly suggestive of my proposition: we overvalue mediocrity.

Kansas City weather next weekend: mid 30s highs, hi teens lows. No snow. Winds 10-12 mph. (Sorry, I had to do it 😜)

In the pregame threads someone joked about our weak link, Matt Haack, and how he'd not be a factor because we'd never have to punt. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect it to really happen. Just as close to a perfect offensive performance as a team can have. There should be a QB rating thing for offense overall so we could have that 158.3 rating.