dave mcbride

My understanding is that it doesn't have to be on purpose. If he's running side by side, they probably don't call it because the DB is playing good defense. But this was a case where the receiver had a clear step on the DB. Intentionally or not, the DB who has been beaten and is about to potentially give up a TD clearly causes him to trip--costing TB a real chance at 7. I thought that ball was catchable. 50/50, but catchable for a guy like Evans. I have zero problem with that call.

Hey, he played for Dabo Sweeney, who is as big a Jesus freak as can be. Easterby appears to be a different level: a mix of religious zealot, snake oil salesman, cult leader, and Svengali. Regardless, it'll be interesting to see what happens. I truly don't care, and I'm going to treat this as a test of whether this can actually happen in today's NFL. It's not as novel as people think: we have the example of Carson Palmer, who was willing to sit out for a season. He pulled it off. Check it out (from Wikipedia): "On July 26, 2011 a video posted on NFL.com showed a press conference held by Mike Brown, the president of the Bengals, stating that he did not expect Palmer to return to the Bengals for the 2011 season, the organization wished him well, and that there were no plans to trade him. When asked why he would not trade Carson, Mike Brown answered: 'Carson signed a contract. He made a commitment. He gave his word. We relied on his word. We relied on his commitment. We expected him to perform here. He's going to walk away from his commitment. We aren't going to reward him for doing it.'" They traded him two and half months later for a first round pick.

More evidence that Pats fans still love Tommy. https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/02/08/super-bowl-lv-drew-a-higher-tv-rating-in-boston-than-in-tampa/

TB's defense is great. They were second in defensive DVOA last season and 5th this year.

I thought that was the one penalty against the KC secondary they got right. The KC defender (Breeland) had been beaten badly, and that was probably a TD (Evans would likely have caught up with it). Regardless of intent, Breeland clearly tripped him and then collapsed on his feet. taking Evans down with him. You gotta call that.

I suppose we could ask him ...

They are one and the same as I distinctly recall.

No, it was the same person. It was an actual conversation back then.

No, he changed his name and rejoined. I was there and remember it clearly. He posted incessantly about Mahomes before the draft.

The Bills scored their one meaningful TD because the KC punt returner fumbled at the one yard line. Otherwise, the production was similar.

This is false. He was on the forum before the 2017 draft (as a Bills fan) and pushing hard every day on his argument that the Bills needed to draft Mahomes. He switched to the Chiefs because he’s a Mahomes fan, but he still likes the Bills.

Easterby was hired in early 2020, and Watson signed the extension 7 months later (in a covid situation). I think it’s fair to assume that he didn’t realize that he was going to be working under a cultish short-haired friend of Jesus driving a chartreuse microbus. I give Watson a hard pass on this one. Easterby and McNair suck and are toxic. To quote Janis Joplin, get out while you can.

He had a sneaky-dirty hit after the whistle on the bills’ first possession that set Jones off, and then he later delivered what looked to be a kidney punch (judging from the video) that caused jones to retaliate. I don’t fault feliciano - they were trying to get to the SB and the book was out that you could aggro jones into doing something stupid. He had been ejected earlier in the season for retaliating. On that play, the refs just missed the retaliation, but it was an ejectable offense.

Great post. Going back to his Miami days when he regularly stoned the Bills o-linemen, I have long felt that Suh had shockingly become one of the most underrated players in the league. He is a force out there—still extremely difficult to handle one on one.

NE fans will always love both.

I know an inordinate number of Patriot fans, and *every single one of them* is supremely happy with the result tonight. They also expect Belichick to turn it around. I don’t that most of them think in the way that Bills fans want them to. Tommy will always be one of theirs, as will BB. It is what it is.

To be fair to McD, he ran an elite defensive line in 2013 that had freaking 60(!!) sacks. They were second in both points and yards allowed that year, but were arguably the best D in the league. That said, it’s worth noting that their best pass rusher by far was a legit criminal: Greg Hardy.

Agreed. A normal qb would have been sacked 12 times. KC went in with a garbage o-line, and it showed. Eric Fisher takes heat because of how high he was drafted but he is genuinely good. The replacement tonight (Remmers) was a matador, as was the RT replacement.

Agreed, but with regard to Jones, it’s on the refs to pay attention to attempts to aggro him given the history. Christ, Feliciano did it, and Jensen tonight was even more blatant. He retaliated, but the refs have to do better. I have no love for Chris Jones, but I do expect SB refs to have informed situational awareness.

The one thing I’ll push back against is the PI in the end zone. Brady threw that away (it hit the wall well beyond the EZ) and wasn’t remotely catchable. It’s not even really arguable, and it was a huge play.

Excellent point ... but the Bucs have an inordinate number of low character individuals too!

Just to be clear, i was talking about last year (see my edit of that post if you’re interested). The larger point is that they have a TON of physical talent.

In 2019, they were #2 overall according to Football Outsiders’ defensive DVOA metric despite giving up a TON of points. The reason? Jameis Winston not only set a record for pick sixes, he threw picks and fumbled in his own end at a crazily high rate (and along with 30 picks Winston had a ton of fumbles too—12 total) . Most of those turnovers that occurred in their own end turned into points for the other team, and it wasn’t the Bucs’ D’s fault. Bottom line—Winston was terrible, and it had a huge impact on TB’s defensive numbers.

Karma is a b*tch, not a killer. Get it straight!

The reffing in the first half was objectively terrible, but KC was awful in the second half and deserved to lose. KC’s backup OTs looked like high school players — “Ole!” On every other play. For the first time in a long time, the SB was a terrible game. My broader take: the NFL certainly didn’t “fix” the game, but I suspect the last thing they wanted was Andy Reid winning after a (plausible) narrative emerged in which he enabled his idiot son (to the point of employing him despite no visible qualifications), who was responsible for a genuine human tragedy because of his recklessness.