beebe

Penalty EPA is capturing high-leverage situations.

Semi interesting:

A few thoughts/rebuttals: 1. This was the worst year for QBs on record. Basically 75% of the league lost their starting QB for significant time or for the season. In the AFC alone, the Jets, Texans, Colts, Titans, Jaguars, Browns, Bengals, Steelers, Chargers, Raiders and Broncos all turned to backups. There weren't many truly elite teams this year, and as a result, the overall list of "impressive" wins this year isn't very long for many playoff teams. 2. The Chiefs, by their own admission, basically went the entire season and never once 'put it all together' on offense. They thought they had a surplus of young promising receivers when the year began. By midseason, it was clear that this was the worst receiving corps in the league. Not only was it bad, but it was also banged up. Six of the eight receivers on the roster missed time - Hardman (two months), Ross (two months), James (two months), Toney (in and out all year), Moore (one month), Watson (1 game) - and Kelce has had lingering issues all year. McKinnon, their best pass-catching back, also missed time down the stretch and is out for the season. Pacheco also missed time (including the first game vs Bills). It wasn't until before the Bengals game where the Chiefs finally made an adjustment. They simplified the offense and placed hyper emphasis on breaking the huddle early, getting to the LOS, and maximizing their opportunity for presnap reads. Andy commented again today that this has helped them. The offense had their best game of the year vs the Bengals but stalled out in the red zone consistently, ultimately settling for six field goals. In the playoff game against Miami, the Chiefs again broke the huddle quicker than they did all year. They force fed Kelce, Pacheco and Rice - rather than dialing up plays for their army of receivers like they did all season - and were rewarded by Rice's best game as a pro. They settled for too many field goals vs Miami (four FGs inside 32 yards) but the offense turned in a nice game in brutal conditions. 3. The Chiefs defense, even when adjusting for strength of opponent, still rates out very strong. It is clearly the best Chiefs defense of the Mahomes era by pretty much every measure. They have rushed the passer well, and their DBs Sneed and McDuffie are clearly one of the best duos in the league. Sneed has taken out basically every elite receiver he has faced, including Diggs in the first matchup. Their LBs are very deep with Bolton, Gay and Tranquill. Chris Jones is Chris Jones, and Omenihu (missed first six games of the year) and Karlaftis are both playing extremely well down the stretch. I'm near certain this is a top-5 level defense, and Spags is well known for saving his best stuff for playoff time. (Even in the years KC's defense was below average, they surpassed expectations in the playoffs). 4. You are correct in pointing out that the Chiefs turned it over a bunch this year. They finished the year -11 in net turnovers, 4th worst in the league, and also the worst they've fared in the Andy Reid era. They were also third worst in net penalties. They were the only team in the league who finished among the bottom 10 in both net turnovers and net penalties and still made the playoffs. The fact that they went 11-6 despite this probably speaks more to their upside than them being overrated. Cleaning up turnovers and penalties are controllable. 5. The Chiefs were bad down the stretch. However, it's worth noting that they had a historic rest disadvantage from Weeks 12-thru-17. Every single opponent, including the Bills who came off a bye, held a rest advantage over the Chiefs. It amounted to -20 days of rest/prep in six weeks for the Chiefs, the most in 35 years of data per Warren Sharp. The Chiefs obviously aren't a perfect team. And due to the offense's struggles this year, they rate out as a worse team this year than last year by advanced metrics. But if they clean up their mistakes, their true upside seems higher. This year's defense is definitely better than last year's. And this year's offense is essentially the same as last year's personnel wise - outside of swapping Rice for JuJu, and Kelce being a step slower. The Chiefs beat the Bengals last year in the AFC title game even after losing JuJu and Hardman to injury, and with Mahomes playing on a high ankle sprain throwing to guys like Marcus Kemp and MVS (star of the game!) Then the Chiefs beat the Eagles in the Super Bowl despite Mahomes reaggravating his high ankle sprain and again while throwing to a collection of bottom feeder receivers. When you shake everything up in the snow globe, the Bills (even despite their 6-6 start) graded out as a better team than the Chiefs. The Bills are favored by 2.5 points and would also be favored slightly on a neutral field. They're the better overall team through 18 games of results. But I wouldn't dismiss the Chiefs based on the regular season results. I think they're much scarier than these results suggest - and like many teams, they were a few dropped passes (Toney vs Lions, MVS vs Eagles), a blown call (Packers) and self destruction (Toney vs Bills) away from being something closer to a 13-4 team than 11-6.

His job is to entertain and he must be fairly entertaining because the show is one of the very few success stories on that network - getting better ratings than every show on the network including Skip Bayless's Undisputed show. Getting great ratings while making Chiefs-Bills the center of the show's universe is pretty incredible given that most networks the last 20 years have spent all their time fixating on the Cowboys, Yankees and LeBron.

Worth noting McDermott responded to a question that was phrased, "Is there hope?" Nothing in his response indicated that there was real hope prior, but just my opinion reading body language.

Think it was just a walk through.

There's always gonna be outliers in either direction. I don't have the full win-loss ref list in front of me, but would guarantee there's some refs where the Bills perform amazing with. It's not bias. It's randomness. Chiefs fans freak out over Carl Cheffers. It's all noise.

The Chiefs are 74-22 (including playoffs) the last five years. Works out to a 77% win percentage. Their win % in Hochuli games is 78.5%. Their win % with lots of refs is likely the same or similar. This stuff is meaningless.

Not that it matters, but "playoff wins" is misleading for coaches and QBs. Belichick and Brady missed out on tons of playoff win opportunities because they regularly had a first-round bye. They bypassed the Wild Card round 13 times via having the first-round bye. That's essentially a playoff win. Mahomes/Reid on a similar trajectory with four first-round byes in six years. Granted, only one team gets that prize these days.

and the super bowl with an even better scramble (while reinjuring his high ankle sprain)

The two days is highly unlikely to be an advantage or disadvantage from a prep/scheme standpoint. These teams know each other better than they probably know their divisional opponents and played each other about a month ago. Both teams also surely worked ahead a bit (as all playoff teams do).

Chances of playing this week based on current info. Would you bet over (better chance) or under (worse chance) on the following? LIKELY IN -Baylon Spector 85% (likely spasms, mostly pain management thing) -Rasul Douglas 75% (putting significant stock in what he told Tim Graham, because he did not practice last week, and McDermott suggested he wasn't closer than Dodson was to play vs Steelers) -Tyrel Dodson 75% (seemed like he was closer to playing last week than Douglas, but always possible mcdermott is being overly vague/non transparent) TOSS UP -Sam Martin 50% (seems like a true toss up right now) -Gabe Davis 50% (seems highly questionable, don't have a lean one way or the other) LIKELY OUT -Terrel Bernard 15% (seems like a long shot to play despite better-than-expected postgame injury news) -Taron Johnson 25% (multiple concussions in same season, seems unlikely he would clear protocol given short week) -Christian Benford 35% (didn't return to game, seems like possible meniscus per banged up bills, but either way, seems more unlikely than likely)

DT Derrick Nnadi left with injured elbow and didn't return. He's semi important. WRs Skyy Moore and Toney remain out (Toney could potentially return). Jerick McKinnon is out, which is a big loss for the Chiefs on offense.

jerick mckinnon, skyy moore and kadarius toney are all out with injury. hardman missed nearly two months with injury. richie james missed two months with injury. justyn ross missed two months with suspension and now is injured. watson missed time with injury. kelce has had nagging injuries all year long. so basically every single member of the chiefs' already awful pass catching corps has been or is injured this year except rashee rice. pacheco has been out two separate times this year with injury (including vs the bills earlier this year). clyde edwards-helaire missed a game due to injury. the chiefs' starting left tackle donovan smith was out for over a month, then the backup LT wanya morris injured himself. (smith is now back). aside from LB nick bolton's two-month injury and S bryan cook's season-ending injury, the chiefs have been remarkably healthy on defense this year however.

the chiefs kicked four field goals inside 32 yards and didn't have a ton of real incentive to score late once game was out of reach. don't think the 26 pts is very reflective of how they played offensively. that being said, fins personnel was awful.

Bills are -3 at Circa in Vegas.

there's still a couple hundred seats left through the box office in the lower level (there's 60+ seats in section 130 alone and a fair bit of unsold seats throughout the stadium). the bills should do the right thing and give these seats to some of the shovelers imo, at least make sure the place sells out. why leave them empty?

Harbaugh would make the Chargers instantly better, but so many negatives with this job. 1. ownership is brutal 2. same division as mahomes/reid, highly unlikely to win division regularly 3. salary cap situation short-term doesn't seem great 4. every home game is a neutral site game at best w visiting fans regularly overtaking it

What's the best current guess (I know it's just a guess) for Monday playing conditions? Temps, precipitation, wind.

chiefs planet is a cess pool lol

cheering for injury, the classiest fan base strikes again!

discussed by the media? who...frickin...cares.

having six of your 17 games every year be against the same three teams is redundant and boring. i would be in favor of playing each divisional team once per year and alternate home/road. especially now that home field advantage is widely considered to be just a single point or 1.5 points in most cases.

Interceptions leaders by year. 2023: Howell, Allen, Mahomes, Hurts, Goff. 2022: Prescott, Mills, Cousins, Carr, Allen. 2021: Stafford, Lawrence, Heinecke, Allen, Herbert. Fewest interceptions by year (min 12 games): 2023: Zack Wilson, Herbert, Lamar, Prescott, Carr/Wilson 2022: Daniel Jones, Hurts, Brissett, Tannehill, Lamar 2021: Rodgers, Taysom Hill, Russell Wilson, Wentz, Cousins

Which of Allen's games this year rank among the top 10 or 15 of his career? From October through last weekend, I would say none of them, though he did have a nice overall day vs the Eagles in a game they should have won. This was a down year by his standards outside the three September games following the Jets debacle.