Chaos

The OP clearly is speaking to the current roster. Where do you disagree?

If the niners scored a td, the biggest advantage at that point is first crack at sudden death. Since TDs are inevitable when you go for it on all fourth downs (as I have learned in this thread) the niners simply needed to go for it on fourth down and get the inevitable TD.

Going first means first crack at sudden death if the first two drives end in a tie. This is not a trivial benefit of going first.

I think the niners also had another option, as a benefit of going first: They had third and four from the nine. They passed on third down, and kicked the field goal. The pass on third down was more likely to get a TD than a run on that down. However, if they decided they would run on third and fourth down in that situation, they might have gotten a first. Or they might have gotten the ball closer to the five. Turning the ball over that five, means that instead of stopping a Chiefs TD starting from the 25 (with the knowledge they need a TD), the defense has to prevent the field with KC knowing that if they go for it on fourth down, in their own end of the field they will almost certainly lose the game if they don't convert. So punting comes back on the table.

If it was borderline impossible the Chiefs would never punt. it’s not borderline impossible. Even it it was, the niners were allowed to use all four downs to get a TD on the first possession if they possessed true knowledge that it would be impossible to stop Mahomes.

Knowledge can be power. In this case, the knowledge was "If my defense, who has held the chiefs to 2 TDs in 10 Drives (20%) can hold the Chiefs to a field goal for one drive, my team gets first crack at sudden death, even I only get a FG on my first possession. Plus if I get a TD on the first possession, I have the chance to win outright with a stop on the second possession. I don't think Analytics is ever going to show an expected value of greater than 50% of scoring a TD starting at your own 25, in the situation last night. Only the emotional "OMG we held Mahomes to two TD's on 10 drives, but we will never stop him again, because he knows he has to go for it on fourth down".

Thats the point. The teams have fairly even chances to win the new rules. The simple fact that there is a debate about recieving or kicking means the rules accomplished the goal. Chiefs would have failed to score a td on fourth and goal from the 4 yard line just as often as they would have scored. We know this because otherwise, the Chiefs would always go for 2 on extra points.

If the score is tied after each team has possessed the ball, the next score wins and the game becomes sudden death. This is why one takes the ball first. If the niners deferred, and the chiefs scored a FG, then the niners scored a field, the chiefs only needed to get in field goal range to win the game. In the scenario fans would be writing threads "how can you concede the Chiefs first crack at sudden death" The failure of the niners was NOT scoring the TD on the first possesion. The problem was not recieving first.

During the normally useless in-game interviews Reid made this comment yesterday "we just need to adjust to ebbs and flows of the game". He is very good at that.

you seem to be in denial. The Bills were not 100% healthy. They started every player on offense who started the beginning of the season and most every player, save Milano on defense (with Douglas equalling white). This was better than the Cheifs situation, or virtually any other playoff team.

In the game against the chiefs, we did not have Milano or his replacement Benard. Douglass was actually as good or better than White. Bills were quite healthy in their last game of the season.

We lost to the Texans in the playoffs. We made Deshaun Watson look so good, the stupid Browns paid him a bazillion dollars.

I am not sure what you mean to be obvious. I think you mean "the problem is coaching, there is nothing that can be changed on the football field to solve the problem". But I am not sure.

Until Allen spends his offseason learning to play defense, punt and kick field goals, instead of golfing, all Bills losses are obviously his fault.

Bills are among the top most successful regular season teams. The are the most disappointing playoff performers. There is no real room for a bigger gap. The Joe Flacco Ravens, aside from one Super Bowl, actually were a failure as far as winning championships. But the Bills have failed against the Texans, Bengals and Chiefs, so your point really isn't accurate.

This is the point of thread. It juxtaposes this question against the fact that the Bills have been successful in the regular season.

Tiger Woods was "far better than" Jack Nicklaus until he ended up falling well short of Nicklaus' career majors wins record. Mahomes may be on a hypothetical track to a better career. But it is way too pre-mature to say his career equals Brady's.

I think there may be a difference between "aggressiveness" and "imposing your will"/"playing your game". I am not sure there is specifically a problem with play calling aggressiveness. But it seems like in the playoff games we lost to the Chiefs and Bengals, and Texans, the Bills are typically responding to the other teams rather than dictating the pace of place. And we seem to keep ending up one possession behind with that strategy. I don't if that is because the Bengals , Chiefs and Texans had better talent than the Bills or if this is what the Bills are consiously trying to do.

I am hopeful this thread avoids discussions of specific coaching or players. Here are some facts that are not in dispute: The Bills have had more regular season success than virtually any other NFL team in the last 5 years. The Bills have not translated the regular season succes into deep playoff runs Here is a commonly held opinions: Playoff football is different than regular season football. (I am personally on the fence on whether or not this is true) For purposes of this thread discussion I would like to stipulate that Playoff Football IS different than regular season football. Here is the question: Are their any significant football strategic changes that could be made, that would result in playing better "Playoff Football"? If so what are those changes? Alternatively, its fine to respond "flawed premise, the gap between playoff success and regular season success is because the Bills are less talented, or unluckier than the teams that win the Super Bowl"

There is some truth in this. But there is a bigger problem with the premise of this thread. The concept that you can only get to the Super Bowl if you are the #1 seed is truly not a sustainable strategy. Certainly the strategy the Chiefs relied on this year.

This is a perfectly accurate summary of this situaton. Hansen is a national treasure.

Hang your hat on believing that. Bank Robbers don't avoid charges by returning the money.

Ideally there should be no need for discussion about whether or not the commander in chief of the military suffers from or does not suffer from dementia.

The President is calling for an immediate Summit with President Mitterand of France and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany to reassure them that his memory is fine.

Its never been clear to me what the baseline expecation of what coaching staffs should "look like" America - if "equity" 50% women head coaches, with a commensurate number of Asian and Hispanic coaches? NFL player base. Being an NFL player does not obviously make for a better NFL coach. People who coach football - ie the universe of high school, college and NFL coaches who make educational and career decisions to focus on coaching rather than playing or something else (think Sean McDermott, MIke Tomlin among many others in this group) Separately is it assumed that everyone regardless of race/color/creed/gender ethinticy is exactly equally likely to have the same coaching capabilities? Clearly the NFL does not believe this when it comes to players. If it is not true for players why would it be true for coaches?