DCOrange

Just going to be watching from my house in DC today.

We went for a walk in the snow and ended up shaking off a tree that was blocking the road so that a few cars could access their street lol. Thankfully plows came through last night because we were definitely not going to be able to drive home otherwise.

I was at that game and remember thinking we should just run the ball at that moment because at the time, Josh was super prone to those back breaking sacks. And the terror I felt as he started retreating was not fun. I was also losing my mind at that halftime kickoff; most people hadn't returned to their seats yet when that happened and I was freaking out because I had noticed he never actually took a knee. At the time I thought it was a TD for us.

In a mountain lodge in West Virginia

In addition to this, the OP says a squib kick needs to be scooped and returned, which would take a lot of time off the clock. That just isn't true. If they scoop it at, say, the 30 yard line (not abnormal for a squib kick) and just give themselves up immediately, maybe 0-1 seconds come off the clock and they get better field position than the touchback gave them. The squib really only makes sense if you're trying to prevent a dangerous kick returner from making an explosive play, which is the same thing you accomplish by kicking it out of the end zone. Otherwise you're just counting on whoever scoops the squib to not know the rules.

Yeah I think either way is defensible but the way he played it SHOULD have worked. Teammates let him down unfortunately.

I think he played it right trying to force McLaurin into the teeth of the zone. It's just that the guys playing the middle of the field crept too close to the LOS and allowed a window behind them.

Yeah he shoved his face into the ground and then started doing the Iverson step over when Surtain grabbed him.

Mack had already done it before Surtain grabbed him.

Just needed to not throw it 100 MPH from 5 feet away. Knox had plenty of space to put some touch on it. Even if Knox had sat down that was going to be a tough pass to handle.

Yeah he of course is no Derrick Henry as far as we're comparing Josh and Lamar's supporting casts but he was definitely one of the best RBs in the league this season. The receiving traits and explosiveness he showed in college were on full display this season and he's become much better at absorbing contact and staying on his feet than I ever imagined he would. Really lucky to have him as a weapon.

Yeah last year is the issue. Lamar and Josh are both extremely deserving this season. Last year, nobody was really deserving and it seemed to break voters' brains.

Could be because they actually did sell out to stop Lamar and Baltimore used that against them. For example, look at Henry's long TD run where several of Pittsburgh's defenders got caught out of position because they thought Lamar was keeping the ball and that allowed the gigantic hole for Henry to run through. It's kind of a both scenario. Teams naturally want to stack the box, not only because of Henry but also because of Lamar. Lamar's threat as a runner is the main reason Baltimore's rushing attack has been so dynamic every year, including this season when Henry went from people thinking he may be washed up in Tennessee to arguably the best RB in the league despite Saquon rushing for 2000 yards.

There's no good reason to believe this. The Ravens offense has historically fallen off a cliff any time Lamar has been out (scoring roughly half as many points per game) and Huntley's record with Baltimore in games he played significant snaps was 4-8. If you take Baltimore's 15 points per game average with Huntley as their guy, they would have won roughly 6 games. And that was 15 points a game with Justin Tucker being automatic as a kicker; Baltimore's defense/Tucker scored 47% of the team's points in Huntley's games vs. scoring 17% of the points this year. It's probably more likely that Baltimore would have been competing for the #1 overall pick without Lamar this year than winning 12 games IMO. Of course Buffalo would have been dramatically worse without Josh as well. Hard to say which team would have been worse without their QB since we fortunately haven't really had to play without Josh in a long time but I suspect we'd be terrible without him too.

Sometimes is selling it a bit short here. I hope to be surprised but it's literally happened once in the history of the league (twice if you count McNair, but first team All Pro QB Peyton also technically won that year). At any rate, I think the split ballot angle of people voting Lamar for All Pro and Josh for MVP isn't very likely. Maybe the more likely path for Josh is if Saquon syphons off enough of Lamar's votes to tip the MVP to Josh.

A friend and I were talking about which teams have a non QB as MVP and we were saying the correct answer is probably Watt or Hayward but we both thought for a moment about Boswell lol.

If you actually believe Mahomes played better in the regular season any of these 2 (likely 3) MVP seasons, then perhaps explaining it like you're a 5 year old was too ambitious.

Well you did say to explain it to you like you were 5 years old.

Lamar was better than Mahomes the two years he won MVP and was better than Mahomes this year. Mahomes won a couple MVPs when he was better and lost a couple to Rodgers (who also correctly has more MVPs than Mahomes). Montana played like 40 years ago so he and Lamar were not competing with each other for MVPs.

Might be a different EPA model (which is an annoying aspect of EPA lol). The one used for the betrayal index has Lamar 1, Josh 3, and Burrow 5 in EPA.

I'm with you for the most part and Josh would have gotten my vote, but the defense part isn't as simple as you think. Baltimore's defense locked in down the stretch and I think pretty much everyone would take theirs over ours now, but for the season overall, their defense got off to a horrendous start while ours was admittedly leaky but also generated a lot of turnovers, giving Josh the best starting field position in the entire league. As a result, Lamar ranks higher in the "QB Betrayal Index" which is basically comparing the QB's EPA to his defense's and special teams' EPA. Lamar ultimately ranked ahead of Josh in EPA while also having the worse defense and special teams. The only QB that was "betrayed" more than Lamar this season was unsurprisingly Burrow. Baltimore ultimately finished one game behind us and it's mostly because Lamar kept them afloat while the defense and special teams was hot garbage for most of the season. The average MVP this century has posted 0.27 EPA per game; in games where Lamar managed that feat this season, Baltimore is 11-0 and 0-5 when he failed to reach that level. Buffalo was 7-1 when Josh hit the MVP threshold and 6-2 when he did not. At the end of the day, we're really splitting hairs this year. Both QBs were amazing and you can make a very strong argument for both of them, both from a stats and a value perspective. Last year, I don't think either of them should have won it. Neither of them played at an MVP level IMO, but somebody has to win it every year and I guess the voters opted for the best player on the best team since nobody had a particularly special season.

Honestly given Baltimore's penchant for choking leads away in the most unimaginable ways, feel like it makes sense that they may leave the starters in one extra drive lol.

In those last 8 minutes against Denver, Lamar had one run for 1 yard and 0 pass attempts. In those last 4 minutes against Cleveland, Lamar had 0 runs and 0 pass attempts. In the last 11 minutes against Buffalo, Lamar had 0 runs and 1 pass attempt. I don't think that 1 yard is what made the difference in the MVP race. Does it really matter if he's benched vs. just catching a shotgun snap and handing the ball to someone else? He probably does care about individual awards, just like every other athlete does. Most just lie to the media because it isn't cool to say they care.

There's of course also a chance that some Allen All Pro voters give Lamar the MVP vote too (I think your hypothetical is more likely than mine, but still possible).

Kirby can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing his point is that Lamar and Allen are both deserving this year. That's objectively true.