PBF81

We're talking about methodologies here. The team's answer come playoff time has been let Allen do everything. Anyone thinking that that MO is going to carry us through three or four playoff games to a Lombardi is delusional. This just in, there are great coaches and teams in this league that can plan around that, ... as they've done to date. It's a comparison between Brady and Dorsey. Sorry, I hadn't realize that we had no dropped balls during Dorsey's time. Y'all with the dropped balls. It might make some sense sometime if you looked at all the dropped balls we had and the contexts that they were in. Many were in games that we won. Think what you want otherwise, but I won't be reduced to a single stat. Feel free to be however.

Let's hope that he becomes more consistent. If he does he'll be well worth it.

Relax! Kelce's 35 this season and he already saw his numbers taper off in yards, YPR, and TDs. Gonzalez began falling off at 33. Expect Kelce's numbers to always be good, but his days of carrying that offense are over and will only deteriorate further. I'd be more worried about Rice now with a season under his belt and notable improvement in the 2nd half last season, and now with the addition of worthy and with Marquise Brown now in the mix catching passes from Mahomes and not Jackson. That's a handful for any defense, and if Pacheco's on his game it's even worse. They should be back to a #1 offense this season with Reid running their show.

That's fair and a very good topic and point. Our ToP stats under Brady were better than under Dorsey. Again however, that feeds into the points being made. Under McD(efense) we're forcing ourselves into a ball-control running game mode, which is his definition of "complimentary football," but the question that rears its ugly head is whether or not that's what's best for our offense in getting it to score the most points and move the ball otherwise the most. Here's the thing, that may work well during the regular season in most games, but in the playoffs the better coaches are going to figure that out. Cook e.g. had 36 carries for only 140 yards and an incredibly pedestrian 3.9 YPC average after averaging 5.0 during the season. If not for Allen's rushing the Steelers playoff game goes to the wire and we lose more substantially vs. the Chiefs. Allen, not Cook, was the reason for our postseason rushing success. Allen had 20 carries for 146 rushing yards and 3 rushing TDs. ... again, contrasted with Cook's 36 for 140 and 0 TDs. Cook didn't even do anything significant in the playoffs in the receiving game with 8 catches for 26 yards with only one of those receptions going for a 1st-Down. Not to discount that, but it's not the same way we succeeded under Brady during the regular season generally speaking. At the end of the day, our staff has no solutions other than how to get mere average production from the offensive support players. Hence the overreliance upon Allen for the entirety of our success.

I considered that, but I was talking about regular season. In the playoffs Allen typically shines and our D craps out. But since you brought it up, our playoff game vs. Pittsburgh and a second-rate QB was hardly great, and their D in that game was without Watt, which is like our O being w/o Allen. Either way, Allen's game vs. Pitt was very good but our D played poorly, again. Pitt played better than their season average against us in Yards, Passing Yards, and 1st-Downs. So there's that. But in the KC game Allen played his worst playoff game since the 2019 & 2020 seasons, which feeds right into the argument that was made. The only game worse after the 2020 season, Allen's breakout season, was the Cincy game last season. The KC game was all but entirely predicated upon Allen's 12 carries for 72 and 2 TDs amidst a very pedestrian passing effort. Is that what we want from our offense typically. (rhetorical) Factor those in if you like, but it makes little difference.

Yeah, I know. I was just clarifying for others. It's definitely going to be an interesting season, eh.

Well, we'll see. Either way, barely beating NE on the merits of a defensive TD, because their offense sucks, while putting up only 20 offensive points, 14 having been from the D setting us up at their 14 also, can be spun anyway we want, but it cannot possibly be spun as having been good. Our performances on either side were nothing special in that game. On a side note, NE put up their 1st and 4th best scoring games on our 4th ranked D. Same for the Chargers who featured an offensive roster of talent that would have rivaled the worst of any team on the season had it been there all season. Our D also did not play well, nor did our O against their 24th ranked D, and again, we needed a last-minute FG to beat them. Putting up a mere 14 offensive against Miami, a team we've owned, was the worst offensive output since 2018 in Allen's 7th overall start. In four of our last five games we didn't even average over 20 PPG offensively. That's not a good harbinger going into this season. Then factor in the draft not really assisting that. Coleman replacing Diggs & Davis isn't going to account for 14 TDs and half of Allen's yards. Again, if those regular season games under Brady were extrapolated out to a full season, Allen would produce 4,143 Yards, 24 TDs, 17 INTs, 244 YPG, and a rating of 85.5. If that were to occur no one will be happy as it would be only marginally better than his numbers in 2019 with twice the INTs. It's a very difficult argument to suggest that Brady was or will be an improvement. It's also quite possible that the reasons for the positives in his style were due to, not in spite of, Dorsey's influence. We simply don't know. We will see. You mention "crunching the numbers," but the game is about scoring and moving the ball. "Down the stretch" when we needed every single win to make the playoffs much less win the division, we played incredibly poorly, on both sides quite frankly. We played two pretty talentless teams along with Miami, where our offensive performance was the worst since Allen's first game (a loss) to them. Again, not a good harbinger. To suggest that The narrative about Brady being so much better than Dorsey simply isn't true from a scoring and ball movement perspective. I didn't care for Dorsey, but Brady's raw, and whether or not he straightens that out this season, a tall task with a defensive minded head coach breathing down his neck for him to conform to that approach, remains to be seen. That's the primary problem with our team as most see it, we don't have any particular expertise guiding the offensive side. But we can't say yeah, we scored fewer points on average, didn't move the ball as well, our QB saw his stats nearly halved in scoring with his efficiency metrics plummeting to near all-time worsts, but the OC is better. That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, particularly when that QB is the only reason you're doing anything. Of course the jury's out, so your take may quite possibly be true. All I'm doing is pointing out the falsehoods and inconsistencies in the established narrative.

It will be interesting, and in fairness Brady deserves a full preseason to prep, but to my recurring point, we have zero proven offensive creative experience in this team's staff. None. It's all about the D under McD. ... and McD, ... perfect name. Look at my post above. It's relevance can be debated, but not the facts.

Agree with the first part of that, but Allen's metrics got notably worse last season under Brady. That's not debatable. His completion percentage, which should have gone up given how McBrady used him, decreased significantly. His TD production also plummeted. If that pace continues for this season, he'd finish with about 4,100 passing yards and 24 passing TDs, which would be his worst showing since before he became good, since 2019 essentially when many were calling for the team to move on from him to add some perspective. His rating was worse, substantially worse, than it's been since 2019. 85.5, which on the season would have ranked 23rd, just behind Justin Fields and ahead of absolutely no one of consequence. All those ranting about how we improved under Brady are hallucinating. But we enjoy our hallucinations though. In short, the reality is that McBrady are moving him in the opposite direction from where he should be going.

Unloading Allen would be the dumbest thing that this team did from a historical perspective. However, he is not efficient at the high-percentage passing game, and he will need to be given this cast. As it is, his passing metrics dropped significantly under Brady, which means we're far from getting the most out of him in the passing game. That's due to McD and his misplaced "complimentary football" MO, how he defines that. Allen's really going to have to be at the top of his short-medium game if this is too work out optimally. Unfortunately that's not playing to his strengths. Poor and inexperienced coaching on the offensive side is holding him, and therefore the team, back. There's zero creativity on offense, which should have been and be the strength of it team while Allen's our QB. But instead it's the defense.

Having said all that, why the lack of high-end production in college, against weaker DBs than he'll see in the NFL. A rhetorical question.

It's about the QB and building around him according to his skillset. Brady rarely had what would be considered a "#1 WR" in his Championship seasons. His top WRs in his SB winning seasons were Brown, Branch, Givens, and Edelman (Gronk) for three of them. His best WR was Moss and and then Welker. They won nothing with them. We have no plan with Allen. Just cut him loose and watch him go no matter how inefficient or lacking in optimization the offense is. Why, because we have no creative mind on that side of the ball. Having great WRs obviously helps, particularly when you're playing without a plan and playground-ball like we do. Otherwise, it can be overcome, but as with Belichick defensively, you have to have someone that can conjure up the total being greater than the sum of the parts. So far out total's been less than the sum of the parts.

Travis Kelce-Swift

Good post. I know that there's at least a few people including myself that think that we're not very original offensively. From where we sit, we see, for instance, McD/the-team, trying to "do what KC's doing," namely feature their TE as their top receiver. If true, whether that works with Kincaid v. Kelce remains to be seen, but it's not original. What many of us are looking for is some originality in scheming the offense, and it should be incredibly possible with Allen while not merely having Allen play schoolyard ball. To start, until Allen starts utilizing his short-medium targets far more optimally, which have typically been wide open often due to Diggs & Davis going deeper (until Brady took over), we leave quite a bit on the table offensively for games. Running the ball and relying on your D is great when it works, but there should also be a serious effort made to optimize the passing game. It gets frustrating watching Allen go deep when there's a guy wide open in the flats or to the short outside where if he hit that guy we'd have a 1st-down and possibly a big play there. Sometimes the downfield stuff works, other times it doesn't. The point is that we can extend drives and score (TDs or FGs) more often than we do with far more efficient offense. As to the 7-1, that's the narrative, but the truth is a little different. Yes, "we barely threw to the WRs in that stretch," but we also hardly won decisively. The results look far more impressive than they actually were. For example ... We barely lost to Philly, but Philly went 1-5 after that, 1-6 if we count the playoffs, and were incredibly overrated as many had said. We then beat the Chiefs who were without Pacheco, and beat Dallas decisively. But after that we struggled despite going 3-0 against the Chargers, Pats, and Fins. Against the Chargers who were without their three top players (Hebert, Allen, and Bosa) we beat them in last-second fashion with a FG. Our top D allowed Easton Stic to play a pretty decent game with WRs/TEs in that game that were worse than our top-5 WRs/TEs right now. We barely beat a crap NE team on the merits of a defensive TD, not offense. We also barely beat Miami on the merits of a STs TD return. If we struggled to beat teams of that caliber at those times, and largely due to anemic offense, it's hardly a feather in anyone's cap on the staff. People can dislike this post all they want, but the reality is that we could just as easily have gone 2-4 over that stretch. You'll see what I'm referring to this season I'd guess if our play like that continues. If that happens, then the discussions here will be incredibly interesting. If we really want to be great, then we need someone that can see what Allen does best, figure out how to conform the rest of the team around him offensively, and have Beane draft around that. So far that's been far from the case, which is the reason for most peoples' frustrations. We also do not have anyone on staff that's suited to doing that and don't expect McD to hire anyone like that, because it would conflict with his "complimentary football" regimen, and which would fine if it actually worked, but the reality is that it held our O down, and that's hardly the ticket when you have a QB like Allen. It's like taking a Ferrari to a go-cart track.

At the end of the day we all want a championship. Keep in mind though, the same things have been said about all of our prior GMs at one point or another also.

Yeah, I know you were. Just horsing around. LOL

It hasn't been. Is it even definable, identifiable. Which is a problem IMO. It changes from season to season, almost as driven by what the narratives are or will be and to please the media & fans.

That's fair and I definitely appreciate your enthusiam for the new look. I'm hopeful, but my point has been about a mismatch. A mismatch between that and what type of QB Allen is. Allen has always struggled with the high-percentage passing game. It's questionable as to whether or not he knows it but simply has such enormous confidence in his arm that he ignores the impulses to simply mount longer more consistent drives. All I'm saying is that if Brady's vision for the O is going to work, Allen's going to have to change his passing game, not in a small way either. And from there of course the discussions ensue as to whether or not we'd be better off with personnel, either only on the Offensive side or altogether, with people that understand that better and know how to get the most from the generationally talented tool that they have, rather than trying to force-feed some alternate vision into the mix that is an uphill battle to optimization of the Offense. We will see. We're all hoping!

I hear ya. you dont know pain. You talkin' about from the seats at the Rockpile? LOL, just the '90s version otherwise. Some '80s, but the expectations were low then.

Having said all of that, isn't it also their (McBeane's) responsibility to get coaches that align with what they're doing. Short answer, yes, it is. So why three different OCs in as many years, all with significantly different philosophies. That's a more complex question as we get into behind the scenes stuff, but to address the issue. As to the bolded, I would ask you, what is Beane's vision of the offense? Does anyone truly know? We do know that what he's said was different last year than it was this year. That might be some critical insight. Secondly, who's the driving force behind the methodology of the offense? What's their experience? Track record of success? That's all I'm hinting at.

Super Bowl baby! And right from where we like 'em, the 5th round.

Please stop with the childish fire everybody stuff. It's beneath you, particularly when you say that you don't get emotional. That's purely an emotional response. As to the rest, I don't get emotional either. It's difficult finding people to discuss with that do not. Where we differ is that I'm not merely content with an amusing season anymore. I'd like to see a championship. At the very minimum I'd like to see our best in the playoffs, but that's far from what we've gotten, particularly with a top-ranked defense during the regular season and one that plays like a bottom-10 ranked D in the playoffs, yes, statistically. Have a great week as well!

Entirely agree with you there. What we do know is that the approach and methodology employed via this draft is once again different than prior statements of intent from the people conducting the draft. We need a WR to separate. Now we don't. On top of that, Allen's easily the biggest long-ball TD pitcher in football, easily. Now we have a cadre of WRs that excel at the underneath and short-medium stuff. That's not Allen's game. Can he adjust to the extent that he excels in the high-percentage passing game? He'll always be great, but will we have this Offense running at 100% is the question. That's more the game of a Burrow, Purdy, or other QBs. We want to go speed on Offense which is why we jettisoned Sing & Moss. Then we draft all but a Moss clone. No OL help. Suppose, as in it's very likely, that we do not have the same injury fortunes that we had last season with zero injuries to our OL. Day 3 OL-men going to cut it? As you say, we'll see how it turns out.

Who knows. None of us are privy to their personal discussions. Keep in mind, Beane is only here because of McD, you know that. I'll lean to the side that says if we had a Ben Johnson here, our drafts would look considerably different.

Like we do in the playoffs. If regular season is your thing, great. Otherwise, I would agree. When you're one of the worst defenses in the playoffs perenially it's an issue. The solutions can be argued. But arguing that it makes more sense to build around a D than it does around Allen is dubious and questionable at best. Imagine if Purdy, Burrow, Tua, Goff, and Prescott didn't have the WRs that they do. Better yet, imagine Allen in their offensive situations. Or not, your call.