Cash

How do you know if you’re trading up for Julio Jones or Sammy Watkins?

I think we should limit the designed runs in the regular season. (And we have, for early season at least.) I completely trust Allen’s judgment when it comes to scrambling, and don’t want the coaches messing him up by harping on it too much.

I'll bite. 2nd and 9, hit Diggs on the short crosser. Sets up 1st and 10 from the 16, KC calls timeout #2 with about 1:51 remaining 1st and 10, run for 3 yards. KC calls timeout #3 with about 1:44 remaining 2nd and 7 from the 13, run for 4 yards. Clock runs down to about 1 minute 3rd and 3 from the 9, run for 4 yards. Clock runs down to about 25 seconds TD on 1st or 2nd or 3rd down. Bills have 2 timeouts left so running is still viable. Maximum time left is about 20 seconds. There you have it - 5 plays, all on the final drive, and we're up 4 and need to prevent a TD in the last 5-20 seconds. The runs could also be checkdowns instead.

Thanks for posting! Some of these reporters need to be willing to be boring. No one is "A PROBLEM" at a Senior Bowl practice. And if a guy's 1-day practice performance is "making me feel things", it's time for some serious self-reflection.

Excellent post. And a great point about sample size. I’ve seen this a couple times, but not many: what the models should be spitting out is the “break even” probability for going for it. (And with all of the assumptions, approximations, and missing variables, they should probably be rounding to the nearest 10%.) If I’m a coach, that’s what I want to know. Do I need an 80-90% chance of success to be worth going for it, or is it closer to 50/50? And comparatively, how much do I trust my offense/playcall/QB against their defense right now? And on another note, the advantage of being up 3 scores vs 2 is significant. If the model (or the coach making decisions based on the model) didn’t take that into account, that’s a major problem.

Thinking of you @whorlnut. Best wishes.

Where I think it matters is for big games against elite teams with top-end coaches (like the Chiefs or Bengals). Those teams have a tendency of being able to force teams into doing what they’re worst at. That could mean giving up completions underneath and daring our guys into making one of their guys miss. If we don’t have anyone who can break or evade a tackle, or don’t have a QB who can place the ball accurately enough, that could be a problem. Maybe there’s other ways to beat that kind of defense; I don’t know.

Yeah, his first half (or thereabouts) was massive numbers. The hope would be that he tailed off due to some injury he was hiding, but I’m not sure I buy it. If he’s playing hurt, why throw him a ton of screens? And what injury causes you to get the drops for the first time in your career? If it wasn’t physical health, I’m wondering if it was mental health, or something else. There has to be a reason his performance dropped off so dramatically - even adjusting for changes in usage under Brady. It’s probably a combination of factors, but I think there’s one main reason that Diggs knows, but we don’t. I’d love to know that reason. And if it’s something that’s likely to carry forward into next year. At Diggs’ age, I’m going to assume that it will carry forward unless I have reason to believe otherwise. And I think that’s where the “not a #1 WR” sentiment is coming from. They’re assuming that 2024 Diggs will be the same guy we saw down the stretch this year. And that guy was not what people think of as “a #1 receiver”.

My thoughts: I prefer RAC (run after catch) to YAC (yards after catch). No beef with anyone who disagrees; just personal preference. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I would expect that our RAC numbers look very different under Dorsey vs under Brady. My guess is we were somewhere around 28th in RAC/completion under Dorsey, and probably close to 10th under Brady. Shakir especially starting getting some great RAC once Brady took over. Like Shaw says, what matters is yards & TDs. A throw into the endzone, by definition, can't get any RAC. But no coach, player, or fan would ever think it's bad to complete a pass in the endzone if you're trying to score. I think a lot of RAC is scheme dependent (see #2). Both in terms of what plays are called and how they're designed. An offense with a lot of screens, crossers, and swing passes is going to get more RAC than one that mostly throws hitches and deep outs. Obviously there's a player component as well - ball placement by the QB makes a difference, and skill players who are fast and/or can make a guy miss, etc. So what? So RAC is only important when it's important. By which I mean overall numbers don't tell you much of a story. What the coaching staff should be (and probably is) doing is looking at plays where we could or should have gotten signficant RAC, and determining why we got it or why we didn't.

Agree to disagree on the O-line, but I'll concede that they held up much better than the D-line. And I think I came across more strongly than I intended to. I wholeheartedly agree that the teams are evenly matched. Regarding the bolded: I don't purport to know anything definitively, but it feels like it's not a coincidence that they've won all 3 of the playoff matchups, including both of the close ones. (I also don't think it's a fait accompli by any stretch - I 100% believe we would've won the 13 Seconds game in OT if we'd won the coin flip, and we could've stolen the win last week with a perfect final drive.) Andy Reid seems to save his best stuff for the playoffs, and Mahomes has shown that he's basically never going to make a mistake against us in the playoffs. There's a mental toughness there that our team sometimes has, but sometimes doesn't.

Not the most recent one, but I did see Thad duel Drew Brees in the Superdome back in 2017. SPOILER: Brees won the duel.

I think you hit the nail on the head - it's the HOW part. In his year-end press conference, Beane said something about having to be very careful about every dollar they spend. I doubt he thinks they can afford a $4mil cap hit just to get rid of Diggs. Now, if this was the NBA's cap? I'd be calling Tampa about doing a sign & trade of Diggs for Mike Evans. And in a cap-free world, I'd be calling Jerry Jones and selling him on adding another star, while also reuniting the Diggs brothers. All for just the low, low price of this year's first round pick. (In the cap-free scenario, I'm also doing whatever I can to sign Evans outright.)

Agreed on 1 & 2. On point 3, I hope you're right. My worry though, is that the team is consistently close to KC, but also consistently just enough worse to lose these big games. I still haven't read Tyler Dunne's full hit piece* on McDermott, but the "tightness" talked about in the free section does seem to add up with the results on the field. My hope is that McDermott can get better as a coach, which includes setting the tone in a better way than he has been. McDermott has shown the ability to learn from his mistakes before, and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for another year. But at some point, we need to see a playoff game against another elite team where our guys look more energized than their guys. Take the last game for example: Our stars on the D-line went up against their stars on the O-line, and theirs won handily. It wasn't a back and forth, where we won some and they won some. It was our guys getting smoked every down, all game. KC had a massive advantage in yards per play, and it showed. Position-by-position, they looked like the better team, and if we won it would've felt like we stole the game to some extent. Some of that is our injuries in the back 7 on D, and missing Gabe. But we were healthy on both lines, and both lines got way outplayed in the 2nd half. When the whole team (except your superhuman QB) is underperforming, you have to start pointing fingers at the coaching staff. *McD haters: Yes, it's a hit piece. That doesn't mean I doubt his sources, or think that anything in it is factually incorrect or otherwise unfair to McD. I'm going to read the full thing with an open mind. But the lede is written in the style of an editorial, and specifically calls for McD to be fired. That's a hit piece by any reasonable definition of hit piece.

Michael Lombardi is a dumb guy who learned enough pithy catchphrases to sound wise. Don’t waste your time.

I remember at the start of this season, I saw a few people saying that Fangio’s success usually shows up in year two, because there are usually growing pains for players as they learn the system. If true, it makes this move seem pretty dumb! But to be fair, the article I read when Fangio was fired seemed to think he really wanted the Philly job and basically asked for his release. If that’s true, tough luck for Miami. I wouldn’t force someone to coach for me if his heart wasn’t in it either, because I don’t think that could possibly lead to good results.

Sign me up for this, except maybe for the kicker. EDIT: And I'd make one of the 6th rounders a linebacker.

I respectfully disagree. With the game on the line, we couldn't score, despite having the best or 2nd-best QB in the league. I also think that loading up on defense to try to stop the Reid/Mahomes combo is a fool's errand in some ways - when they need a score, they're almost always going to get it. Yes, our offensive numbers were good, but we shouldn't be 30 yards less than "the top teams", we should BE the top team. I'm sick of seeing dropped passes and receivers not on the same page with our QB. I'm sick of losing to the Chiefs or Bengals because they put a spy on Josh and dare our receivers to win 1 on 1 matchups. Let's go get some more guys who will consistently win those 1 on 1s. That doesn't mean we need superstars everywhere, but our WR room was a major disappointment down the stretch, except for Shakir. Diggs turned into a shell of himself, Davis was a trainwreck then got hurt, Harty made a couple nice plays but was mostly invisible, and Sherfield is a nice 5th WR/special teamer, but shouldn't be starting a playoff game. With that said, I'm pretty happy with the state of the O-line (but you can always use more depth there - we got really lucky with O-line injuries last year), the TE room if Knox stays, and the RB room. My assumption is that they'll bring in a bigger back to complement Cook, either late in the draft or on the vet minimum. Defensively, they'll need to devote at least some of the draft there for sure. We're going to lose a lot of bodies on the D-line and one always needs depth in the secondary. I actually think our LBs are great if they get & stay healthy - Bernard & Milano starting, Spector & Williams backing them up. I expect a mid-round pick (4th or later) at LB.

ST: Agree with others on this thread - it would be a suprise if Smiley is back. Defense: McDermott needs a D-coordinator to free himself up for decision-making on game day. There's a lot of hands-on coaching work involved in coordinating a full defense, and that's work that someone besides McD should be doing. This seems like an internal promotion to me - agree with others that Babich or Washington are most likely. I don't think the scheme changes, so an outside hire is unlikely. But they'll backfill the position coach that gets promoted. Offense: The big question is: Brady or outside hire? And if it's Brady, what's his vision for our offense? He did the best he could with Dorsey's offense on the fly, but it was still Dorsey's offense. Likewise, who's out there who wants the job, and what's their vision for the offense? I have to think that it's a job people would want. You get to work with Josh Allen, and there's little downside. If we suck, McDermott will get the blame. If we get over the hump, you'll get the credit and likely land a head coach job somewhere. Depending on the stature of an external hire, this could be an interim OC possibility if McDermott were to be fired at some point.

Neither. If we win, I’ll be very happy no matter who wins the other game. If we lose, I’ll be very upset no matter who wins the other game.

He was also coming in ice cold (figuratively AND literally) after not having played in like 2 months. He mentioned that in his postgame comments as well. According to one of the beat reporters I was listening to, Elam literally couldn't feel his feet for those first few plays. So I'm willing to give him a pass there. My hope is that Elam's struggles this year were primarily due to being hurt and trying (unsuccessfully) to play through it. I thought he played really well down the stretch last year, and it's hard for me to fathom why else he wouldn't be able to play at that level.

That this is the week we actually connect on one of those deep balls where the receiver has a step or more on the trailing DB. We've had about 1 perfect opportunity for those a week for like 2 months now, and to my recollection haven't actually connected on any of them. (Note: I don't just mean deep shots in general, like Diggs' great contested catch last week. I mean more like Gabe's 99 yard TD against the Steelers last year.)

1.) Yes, but keep in mind the stages aren't based on time. Somone can stay at a given stage for a long time. 2.) The official story with walkthroughs is that the team estimates what the player would've done in a real practice. In the case of concussions, where there's a formal protocol in place, I think it's pretty clear-cut that LP means he would've practiced in some capacity.

Given that we were starting Donald Brown and David Nelson at WR alongside Stevie, it was a miracle any time we completed a downfield pass back then. I wasn’t a fan of the Gailey hire, but I have to admit he proved his prowess as an OC here. Those teams were severely under-talented but managed to consistently move the ball.

I don’t understand how grown adults can live for decades without realizing that weather forecasting only starts being reliable about three days out. Come on, people.

My guess is that Williams would be next man up (over Spector) against a lot of teams. From what I’ve read, Williams’ biggest flaw right now is biting on misdirection. Doesn’t matter how fast you are if you get fooled on the play.