HappyDays

Quentin Johnston is not the reason McConkey has played mostly from the slot. LA would love to replace him with someone, anyone. If McConkey could play that role they would have made the switch weeks ago. McConkey plays from the slot because that's where his skill set fits best.

I wonder what Mike Gillislee is up to

The defensive scheme and play calling has produced abysmal results for weeks... And yes that includes the Pats game. Let's see if they bounce back against, Adams, Wilson, and Hall tomorrow.

I don't know about that honestly. Our scheme is very well defined at this point. We aren't suddenly going to become a bombs away downfield passing offense in the playoffs. When Cooper was producing at an elite level after Joe Flacco took over they had gone full gunslinger offense. The only time we've seen anything close to that since adding Cooper was when we fell behind against the Titans and Rams - and it's no coincidence that those were his two highest volume games. If we're playing with a lead or in a back and forth tight game, the offense will be more of the same.

Very good at a lot of things, not elite at any one thing. That's generally what defines the lower tier of #1 WRs. With Brady's offense specifically we have enough of a sample size to conclude that he doesn't get outside WRs involved all that much unless the defense is begging for it. After he took over last year Diggs and Davis fell drastically in the pecking order. Brady's scheme is designed to find the best possible matchup which often comes against LBs or safeties, or schematic mismatches created with rubs, legal picks, etc. That isn't a philosophy conducive to volume production from boundary WRs, for better or worse. Also he wants his WRs on the field to be high level run blockers which is not Cooper's game at all, and I'm sure that's a big reason why his snap count has been lower than anticipated. For those reasons I don't worry too much about Cooper's production. Criticisms of his production are a criticism of the scheme/philosophy, not of the player IMO. The type of offense we run isn't going to give him those volume stats unless the opposing defense plays us in a very specific way. The important thing is that he gives us a factor that doesn't exist without him on the roster. In an offense designed to create mismatches, we previously had no mismatch player on the boundary. Now we have one in Cooper which allows our offense to be extremely versatile and difficult to defend with scheme alone, and he gives us a legit option when we absoutely need to throw the ball downfield like on those two critical plays against KC that ultimately led to TDs. I wish we were willing to give Cooper (and Coleman to some extent) more 1v1 opportunities downfield instead of only calling those shots when absolutely necessary, but again that's because of Brady's scheme not the players themselves. And maybe it's for the best given how horrible our defense has been. Ball control and high efficiency is our only means of beating playoff caliber opponents because we have zero margin for error from the other side of the ball.

Yeah just to quash that awful take once and for all: And like you said Caleb Williams has two legit NFL WRs and a blue chip rookie. Allen had... well, the opposite end of the spectrum. The other thing about Allen's rookie year is he showed continuous improvement from start to finish. Williams to me looks like the same player he was on day one. This offseason he needs to put every ounce of effort he has into improving because as of now he's looking like a total bust, and nobody can turn that around but him.

Does that make us the shining example of investing a ton of resources in the DL, and still having league-worst defensive stats at various times over the years?

He also makes multiple plays a game that only a handful of QBs in NFL history could make. His presence on the field helps Henry more than Henry helps Lamar. Trust me I believe Allen deserves to be the MVP but I hate that the conversation always devolves to bringing the other candidates down. Lamar has been excellent this season. It is an MVP type season, it just happens to be simultaneous with a slightly better MVP season from Allen.

Lamar is 1000% the MVP of his team. Let's not be too crazy.

When Cook has less than 100 rushing yards the Bills are 7-3. When Henry has less than 100 rushing yards the Ravens are 3-5.

On the all-22 of the Pats game it looked to me like Coleman was the best separator we had against man coverage, Allen just didn't look his way very often. They probably game planned to throw away from Christian Gonzalez which I understand but Coleman dusted him a couple times. Hopefully they will see that on tape and make it a point to go to him more frequently. The conversation around Worthy on here is funny because Chiefs fans on social media regularly express how frustrated they are with him. Multiple times this year Mahomes has delivered him a perfect pass down the sideline and he hasn't been able to get both feet in. So right now he is just a glorified gadget player, and for what it's worth he's a very good gadget player but everybody already knew he could be that and that isn't enough to justify a 1st round pick. He'll need to develop his ability to win outside and finish catches downfield, otherwise he'll end up being nothing more than a plus version of Mecole Hardman.

Bills 34 Jets 27 I think we give it our all in this one. The players will be motivated to earn essentially a bye week if they win. When this offense is motivated like that they're almost unstoppable. Plus I think the team wants Allen to have a good showing to lock up MVP. So I predict us getting back on the 30+ track we were on before coming out flat against the Patriots. On defense I'm sure they will be motivated too, I just have zero faith in that side of the ball right now. The trio of Adams, Wilson, and Hall hasn't been too tough to stop for other teams but us? I need to see it before I believe it. A veteran QB with good weapons against our scheme, I think it will be pretty easy for them to move the ball. Hopefully we get a couple turnovers and dumb mistakes from Rodgers and that will be enough to keep them below 30.

Funny you say that because it was players that saved the scheme on Sunday. Rousseau and Bernard stripped the ball from Stevenson. Rousseau read and blew up a backwards pass to force a fumble. Cam Lewis read the QB's eyes and made a great INT in the endzone. All year in fact the players have been forcing turnovers at opportune times when it looked like we otherwise had no answers. I think the players are good enough to have at least an above average defense. Having a putrid bottom of the league defense like we've had in recent weeks is inexcusable.

There haven't been successful adjustments over the past three games. 2nd half of the Rams was as bad as the 1st half. 2nd half of the Lions was worse. In the Pats game adjustments aren't why Stevenson fumbled, Maye made a rookie mistake in the red zone, and the RB dropped a backwards pass - they were still able to move the ball despite having an utter lack of talent. We have probably the worst defense in the league over the past three games. The concern is that we've gotten to a point where teams have film on Babich's defense and they are clearly exploiting whatever tendencies they've found. We might have to accept that Babich is just flat out a bad DC. It's his first time on the job, it shouldn't come as a shock. The Rams game in particular was eye opening... That team hasn't come close to that level of production at any other point this year. To me it had the appearance of an elite OC taking a bad DC's lunch, and that sizeable coaching mismatch is going to be there every step of the way through the playoffs.

The roster won't be the reason we fail to advance.

Okay fair enough. It's always been Ben Johnson for me because he's had several seasons of proven success. I remember being intrigued by Slowik because of what he did in year one but you always want to see a repeat season before elevating someone.

We'll need to put up 40 on Baltimore and 30 on KC. I think it's doable with the level Allen has been playing at. Very low margin for error which sucks but doable.

I think what will end up happening is the large majority voters will think Jackson and Allen both deserve MVP, so it will come down to tiebreakers. Us having the higher seed combined with Jackson getting it last year will be enough to break the tie for the majority of voters. It will be somewhat close but Allen will edge him out unless we lose our last two games and fall to the 3 seed.

That is just a horrid series of play calls. Houston's offense is broken

I'm rooting against Baltimore but that is a weak DPI. Non existent really.

They've been better recently for sure but Stroud has been awful. Bobby Slowik needs to call some rhythm completions to get his head back in the game.

Oh Stroud is REALLY off today. Like he's the only reason their offense stinks right now.

Not really. We'd already have the 2 seed locked up but the 1 seed was out of reach regardless.

They have nothing to play for

Losing close games because of bizarre coaching decisions isn't uncharacteristic of us. It's defined our team the past couple years.