Sammy Watkins' Rib

For four straight post season exists now in the divisional/conference round the Bills had to have a near perfect offensive performance to win. That is the problem we should be focusing on, not one single play where it is debatable or not if Allen should have thrown to the wide-open receiver in the endzone or the wide-open receiver on the shallow crosser. Not guarantee the Bills get a TD on that drive still if he does dump it short. When winning requires AT LEAST 43, 39, 28 and 28 points every single time the Bills play the real competition in the post season, that's a problem. The Chiefs and Ravens just played a far from perfect offensive game on both sides and either team could have won with 20 points.

Bills started to go push tush heavy the final 5 games of the year. Of Allen's final 5 rushing TD's on the season, 3 or 4 of them may have been tush pushes. Before that majority of Allen's rushing TD's were well outside the 5 yard line on average.

He had 8 total from the 3-1 yards out. One from the 3 yd line, two from 2 yd line and 5 from the 1 yd line. For whatever reason, 5 out of the 8 rushing TD's scored, and his final 5 rushing TD's scored on the year were all from the 3 yard line and in, and all came in the final 5 games of the year. Up until the Dallas game Allen's 10 rushing TD's on the year were from an average distance of 8 yards out. An argument to your counter-argument, does a RB who scores 20+ TD's on the year ever get dinged for the TD's they scored inside the 3 yard line? I've never heard of discounting a RB's goal line rushing TD's as a thing.

Didn't he lead the league in passing TD's that year as well? And like 1,200 rushing yards?

Lamar is literally going to win an MVP because his defense picked up the 49ers QB's five times. Freaking MVP voters.

So true. I hadn't watched much Ravens this year before watching the entire game today. It was eye opening how different Lamar and Allen are as runners. One is decisive, the other is not to put it nicely. If Lamar ever figured out how to run decisively, he would be unbelievable. But I'm guessing six years in if he hasn't learned to do so yet then he isn't going to learn.

Well that I agree with. They are all garbage.

I'm glad you mention this because it is my biggest gripe with Lamar. Dude is so freaking indecisive both behind the LOS and even beyond when he runs. Even when he finally does run, he somehow runs indecisively too. Dude is the fastest guy on the field for the most part and he runs like he is not. Total opposite of Allen. Allen runs like he thinks he is the fastest guy on the field.

Like Joe Flacco being hot until he throws back to back pick sixes right? The bottom line is nobody believes Rudolph was the long-term answer and that includes for the 2023 season. It was only a matter of time until he turned back into a pumpkin. God help the Steelers if they go into the season with Rudolph as their 2024 starter. If the answer is Rudolph, Pickett or Trubitzky, then it is time to re-evaluate the question.

Come on Chan's do you think Rudolph is a good QB? Be honest now. It didn't matter if they had Trubitzky, Pickett or Rudolph. Steelers offense is below average. Their defense is their strength and the Bills offense handled them as they should. The Bills defense held the Steelers offense to their averages.

I'll give it to you that is funny. I'm just happy @Mikie2times has finally come around to this playoff defense sucks take. Not sure why it took him so long though.

Even if we include all the games as you are wishing, what do we end up with? I'm guessing we still end up with a defense that still underperforms it's regular season numbers and an offense that equals it's regular season numbers. And no, I have not done fact checking on that but that is just what my memory and I eyeballs can recall.

Certain games being like the most important games? The divisional and championship games? Let's not forget it was you who asked the OP why not include all playoff games?

He's not a bad player. His talent alone wins a lot of games in the regular season. He's basically the equivalent of the Bills defense in the regular season. You know he's going to help you win a lot of games and as long as he stays healthy (big question mark) you are making the playoffs every year. I'm no Lamar fan this year. But come on. Hist first MVP in 2019 was very much legit.

Okay, what do you have to say about the rest? You pick out one little thing where I am wrong. Meanwhile your entire premise is wrong. Even if the D played well against the Pats 15th ranked yardage defense (middle of the pack) who cares? The Bills offense had a perfect game that day. Get back to me when the Bills defense actually shows up in the divisional or championship round. You know, like how K.C.'s defense showed up today against Baltimore in only allowing 10 points, allowing the Chiefs offense to have a below average game and still win comfortably.

I voted no and no on the poll.

Lions fans are absolutely out of their mind to be mad at Dan Campbell. Lions literally just arrived this year as a legit team. Get back to me after the Lions have been relevant for at least three seasons then we can discuss making a coaching change.

Harbaugh, Tomlin and McD they are all interchangeable. That said, I don't think any of the three or necessarily bad. Who's coaching today that has made the Super Bowl in the AFC and isn't named Reid, Belichick or Taylor? Is the answer only Tomlin and Harbaugh? Crikey, if so.

So F'ing happy Lamar fell flat. He will go down as the biggest joke of an MVP in my memory. The Ravens signature win was against the 49ers and that was the game that won Lamar the MVP. And what happened in that game? The Ravens defense intercepted the 49ers QB's five times. Yeah, okay, Tyler Huntley could have won that freaking game. Why not Allen or Dak? Feel like if we are including Stroud, then Allen and Dak are also both reasonable candidates. Heck, I even think Lamar is a reasonable candidate. I just hate this crap where it seems like according to media (and they are likely right) that Lamar is a shoe-in and will probably win with 80 or 90+ percent of the vote share. To me that is ridiculous. If Lamar wins it should be a close vote.

Bengals absolutely own McDermott. If Hamlin doesn't die on the field, we are literally talking three straight games where the Bengals offense starts the game with TD's on each of their first two possessions.

How about Josh Allen?? You can't not make it to a Super Bowl with two Josh Allen's. And to your point, there's a lot of stats out there that will show that since 2019/2020, or the last 4-5 years, the Bills are easily the second-best team in the entire NFL, only behind the Chiefs. They have been consistently great for 4-5 years now. Only the Chiefs can claim the same.

Is it true that the offense has underperformed though? I think the offense performed almost exactly to their regular season standard last week against KC. The only divisional/championship game they really fell totally flat was last year against the Bengals. FireChans, doesn't believe in wind. It's just a total coincidence that Bass and Tucker (GOAT kicker by the way) both missed 2 FG's each of gimmie 40 yard distance. Nah, wind wasn't a factor in either team being able to move the ball.

Even playoffs on the whole, off the top of my head they have only been "meh" compared to their regular season dominance. Colts wild card they were total garbage and bailed out by the offense. Ravens divisional. they were great in a game that had weather conditions that clearly hampered both offenses to a great deal. Honestly hard to even gauge how great they were given the conditions. Patriots wild card, they were good in a game where the offense was literally perfect. Both units beat up on the trash units of the Patriots. But the Patriots defense was the strength of that team, top 5 in both ppg and ypg, and yet the Billf offense had a perfect game. The Patriots offense was average that season and the defense still allowed 14 points. They couldn't even hold them to under 10 and the offense was literally the worst unit on that Patriots team. Dolphins wild card. Mixed bag. They give up 24 points. They were put in tough situations by an offense that turned the ball over three times but still managed to score 34 points. But they were playing a third string QB and you would think they could have kept the Dolphins offense to 20 points or less even with the turnovers. Steelers wild card. I won't get on them too much for this game. Sure, it would have been nice if they had a dominating performance from start to finish. In the end they gave up 17 points against a well-known bad offense that averaged 17 ppg for the season. I'd say that is the definition of a "meh" defensive performance. Had they given up just one more FG on the day it would have been a straight up bad defensive performance. As for your question of why just point out the elimination games and not all the playoff games, well because one side of the ball is at least showing up half the time or more against the best competition. The defense is literally a no show against the stiffest competition every single postseason. How are we supposed to make a super bowl if we can't get both units clicking against the best playoff competition? Why are the Chiefs going to yet another Super Bowl? Is it because their unbelievable offense scored 17 points against the Ravens? No, because their defense held the Ravens to 10 points. I can't even fathom a Bills defense holding a divisional or conference championship opponent to such a low total. I'll be happy if they can just hold the next team they play in such a game to 24 or less. The Bills defense in their last four divisional / conference championship games: 38, 42, 27 and 27 points given up. So basically, the Bills offense has to be great every single game against the best coemption. They can't have an off day where they only score 20 or 24 points and still expect to win.

Well actually it shows one side of the ball is clearly worse. Which was the point of the exercise from my perspective. Why have the Bills not advanced to the Super Bowl at least once over the last five years? Because the defense greatly under performs too often. The offense pretty much hits its regular season averages more or less.

My order as well. I'd probably put Tyler Huntley before Lamar though. LOL. Not out of the question given Lamar's injury history.