Avisan

Jury is HEAVILY out on both of them still, with respect to whether or not they would be an upgrade.

No, I watched this one real-time and thought the hysterics were overboard. My posts from that time frame will back there up. People were extremely upset about the zero blitz even though it did its job and the Broncos were extremely lucky to convert. The 12 man thing was beyond frustrating but iirc a veteran player went out when he wasn't supposed to or otherwise flubbed his responsibilities leading to having too many folks on the field. Coaching plays a huge role, obviously, but players need to be able to take care of the football, not have disastrous coverage reps, and execute their assignments, too.

No. Ravens won the AFC with 13 wins, the Bills came in second at 11-6. Veteran player messed up iirc and the Bills were out of timeouts to fix it. The Bills turned the ball over 4 times, fam. That's what kept the game close.

They lucked out crazily on a prayer ball against a zero blitz in a game where the Bills were at their offensive nadir under Dorsey. This is absurd. The Bills lost the turnover battle 4-1. These are the numbers. Show me the "out-coached".

... 16 years ago, with prime Drew Brees, in a less-competitive NFC, when his team was running an illicit bounty program where they were deliberately trying to injure opposing offenses with his knowing consent, leading to his suspension.

What is the obsession with Sean Payton? What has he done to demonstrate being a superior coach? I swear some of y'all like a-holes strictly because they're a-holes, like it's somehow a character plus for you.

Yes, actually. Tom Brady functionally enforced a lot of Patriot Way culture elements and brought in several of "his" guys to help with that. The Buccs initially were up and down until Arians allowed Brady more influence over the offensive scheme and personnel. Talent alone is only half of the battle. Yeah, the Bills have knocked them out twice, and the Bengals once. The AFC playoff picture has been an absolute gauntlet recently.

I mean, the Bills' D has done so 5 out of 6 games this season, and we won the 1 out of 6. Further upthread is the stat that teams win ~75% of the games where they hold an opponent to fewer than 24 points. You don't need a world-beating defense to win a lot of football games.

Dread it, run from it, Elite Dragon Joe Flacco vs. the Steelers arrives all the same.

I mean... and lot of teams have players that can set pass protections and execute them and/or immediately get the ball to the hot routes. We have good pressure rates as a defensive unit, it's not as though we're failing to disrupt the QB from a schematic standpoint, our secondary is just dogwater. Despite that, we're currently the 17th ranked defense, so basically dead average, so SOMETHING has to be going right.

Tom Brady looked bad in games where he was under nonstop pressure by 4 pass rushers. For most of his career he murdered teams that sent 5 or more to try to get to him. His passer rating vs. the blitz was obscene-- some seasons it was like 120+.

That could have been the Bills if Shaq Thompson catches the INT at the end. The Chiefs had some absurdly good fortune like seven weeks last season to come away with dubs.

Does Mahomes make that throw? I'm guessing he does. That's Josh's competition, both in terms of money and expected impact. The whole point of earning that much is that your standard of play needs to be that high. If you don't want the standard to be that high, pay 30 million for a 30 million dollar QB and have the cap space to afford a bona fide #1 on top of tge O-line investments.

Sure, but when defense and special teams hold the opponent scoreless in the second half (prior to the three points at the end), you need to settle the heck down and take the plays that are there. "Josh felt like he had to!" is a piss-poor justification in a game where he demonstrably did not have to.

One additional note: When a team is blitzing relentlessly and refuses to come off of it, the way to beat that is by setting/hitting the hot route over. And over. And over again. The whole point of blitzing is to force mistakes by getting there before a traditional route comes open. Blitzing against Mahomes/Brady/Manning/Brees is/was defensive suicide because they would punish you for it again and again. That level of discipline is something Josh struggles to maintain. He WANTS to kill you with the big play and improv. Disciplined blitzing punishes those tendencies while simultaneously baiting a player like Josh to devolve into them. You have to win with your brain in these games, because the defense is taking away the option of winning with your body.