But a loss is a loss and this counts against him
NFL 2021
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That was great, Winfield Jr. peace-ing out right in his face, no worry about the sideline repercussion of getting a 15 yard penalty as the game was in hand.On KC's last TD of the regulation, he went past a few defenders and did his peace sign thing. That thing he did to one of the Bucs defenders in the regular season last season and then the defender did it back to him in the Super Bowl
That's an insta taunting penalty, yet nothing was called. Ridiculous.
Just read about Hill’s history. I knew there was stuff but never the details. Feck that guy. Not a great overall look when two of the stars in the AFC champ game have this kinda shit in their history (referring also to Mixon).
Yep, pretty repugnant.
What Mixon did was as bad as Hill, so not trying to make excuses for those actions here, but "at least" he was just 18 years old when that happened and as far as I know, he doesn't have any incidents since while also doing lots of community and charitable work in the Cinci area. To my knowledge he also apologized for what he did and showed remorse, which is something Hill never did, and Hill's "you should be afraid of me, too" came years(?) after the video where he choked and punched his pregnant girlfriend. He's never even did so much as acknowledge those incidents.
There are other examples of players turning it around after a difficult start. Brandon Marshall had domestic violence issues early in his career but is held in high regard by the majority of the league now.
Yeah, I know I’m being quite flippant in just aggregating all of these crimes and people into one bucket. Just makes me shudder when you read these stories / see the videos. I do believe people deserve a second chance. And you’re right that Mixon is more deserving than Hill for the reasons you set out in this regard. Hill’s one is bad though. I’m not quite understanding how he was never suspended by the NFL for that. I know the Chiefs suspended him briefly.
Doesn't really matter. Mahomes was still the better QB. If he wins this SB, all the talk about Rodgers will be forgotten.
How was Mahomes the better QB ?
If there was PFF grades for crimes and misdeeds, Mixon is a good to average starter grade. Hill is first team all-pro.
Must've missed that?
Mixon getting racial slurs hurled at him during the incident probably docks him some criminal points I am guessing.
With his last drive before the end of the game he basically pushed the boundaries of what was thought to be possible against one of the best defences in the league.
If my math is right, Allen’s performances this year rank him at worst above the 95th % in the last 15 years of the playoffs. His wild card round is either 1st or 2nd.
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Sexy Rex made a good point this morning on Get Up!, about the Bills not squib kicking. Had they squib kicked the player cannot just go down to stop the clock, guess that is only an option on a ball that has not bounced. Anyhow, he said that would have run 3-5 seconds off the clock and probably led to KC having 1-2 downfield shots and probably no chance at a FG under 50, if at all.
That's what they do in NHL. Overtime in the regular season is just first goal wins and teams are reduced to 3 a side, but in the playoffs you have to see out the 20 minute period, so teams can back and forth as much as they want until the first OT period is over.
It's the next day, and I'm not even a Bills fan, but I'm still gutted for them and Josh Allen. That's probably the hardest punch anyone will throw at the Chiefs this post season. They're winning the whole thing now.
It was just an unfortunate set of mistakes for the 4 plays for the Bills (kick off, pass, pass, FG).
I agree squibbing was the right course of action. Their pass defence was all wrong fr both plays. And little they could do about the field goal in the end.
Having said that, what the Chiefs did was still pretty incredible. I think the real killer was the coverage on Kelce. The Hill one I kinda understand because they did not want to give up the big one and it was ok to give up 15 on that down. But with Chiefs at the 40 or so, they knew the chiefs would look most likely to get a 20 or so yard gain rather than a short gain or throw it deep. They overplayed Hill and set up all wrong. They had 4 backs on the right side, one deep, one in the middle, and one on the left. The middle defender skewed to the right which made no sense and that left kelce 1 on 1 with 1 guy who was standing way off him and he just sold him the out route.
So difficult to look past them now, isn’t it. Momentum and belief is such a huge thing and the way the closed it out yesterday, they will feel invincible.
The thing is it’s particularly unfair in the NFL. In sports like football (soccer) and NHL, the team who “kicks off” doesn’t immediately have a yes or no of scoring. Both teams still attach and defend until one scores like normal. But NFL isn’t like that. It’s one against the other and then the other way round. Which makes the NFL rule particularly bizarre and unfair. It would be like having a penalty shoot out in these sports and also having golden goal - I.e if first team scores the first penalty it’s game over.
That's a good point and a pretty glaring difference. I don't know why they differentiate between a FG and TD, but the FG in overtime rule is literally perfect, they just need to extend it so it includes TD's too.
I wonder if teams are going to stark milk the clock even further against great offenses with a QB with a great arm. The Bengals made sure there was NO time left on the clock against the Chiefs in the regular season, and they won the game. Might've been the same result had they scored too early in that game.
Josh Allen had 00:17 left right at the edge of the redzone. Took an endzone shot at first down, surrendered the ball to Mahomes at 00:13 left. I wanna look up the percentages for that one, but would anyone really bet against Mahomes picking up 30-40 odd yards when it's needed at the end of the game, especially when he has moved the ball pretty much at will against your defense? Like I said it's probably down to the percentages and I can't imagine many OCs or HCs wanting to take this approach, but they could've run a running play on first down. Either you get in the endzone and you have the same result, or you don't get in the endzone and you wait until around 00:10-00:08 seconds left when you spike it at 2nd down or take a TO if you have any left. That gives you two endzone shots to win it all without having to give the ball back to Mahomes. Trust your eyes for what you've seen all game, and trust your offense.
Josh Allen had 00:17 left right at the edge of the redzone. Took an endzone shot at first down, surrendered the ball to Mahomes at 00:13 left. I wanna look up the percentages for that one, but would anyone really bet against Mahomes picking up 30-40 odd yards when it's needed at the end of the game, especially when he has moved the ball pretty much at will against your defense? Like I said it's probably down to the percentages and I can't imagine many OCs or HCs wanting to take this approach, but they could've run a running play on first down. Either you get in the endzone and you have the same result, or you don't get in the endzone and you wait until around 00:10-00:08 seconds left when you spike it at 2nd down or take a TO if you have any left. That gives you two endzone shots to win it all without having to give the ball back to Mahomes. Trust your eyes for what you've seen all game, and trust your offense.
Allen had no choice in the matter when he saw his player wide open in the endzone. Had he deliberately not thrown to him to kill off a few extra seconds to thwart Mahomes, and in the process failed to score a go ahead TD, then the end result would've been the same. He saw an available TD and took it. Its on Leslie Frazier and the number one D in the NFL for not doing what was necessary to stop Mahomes.
It’s such a tough thing to plan though. What happens if you get a flag? What happens if the defence makes a play? What happens if you turn it over? If you try run it down more and you don’t get in it is ridiculous.
There is obviously a tipping point. Up to a point it is worth running down. After that you just gotta get it in and hope your D stands up. I honestly don’t believe there would be many if any instances where a team has got into field goal range with just 13 seconds on the clock. But as you say it’s on the data and I don’t have it.
The thing is, it's incredibly hard to not take the shot at a touchdown when you get the chance. I was thinking when Fournette ran in for the score that it might have been better to just run out of bounds at the 1 and taken another set of downs, but what if they don't score? It's a big risk. Heads would have to roll
I know your scenario is different because the decision is being made by the play-caller before the snap and not a player who is the running unimpeded into the end-zone, but once the decision was made to go with Allen's arm, not throwing to the wide open guy was impossible.
Being honest here, when Fournette ran it in I thought that it would've been better to just get a first down instead of the TD right away. Are you really not gonna trust Tom Brady and your offense to score on any of the four tries inside the 5-yard line? Then you don't deserve to win the game either way.The thing is, it's incredibly hard to not take the shot at a touchdown when you get the chance. I was thinking when Fournette ran in for the score that it might have been better to just run out of bounds at the 1 and taken another set of downs, but what if they don't score? It's a big risk. Heads would have to roll
I know your scenario is different because the decision is being made by the play-caller before the snap and not a player who is the running unimpeded into the end-zone, but once the decision was made to go with Allen's arm, not throwing to the wide open guy was impossible.
I know it sounds ridiculous not to take a TD when it's there but when you take the whole game into account, running the clock down as far as possible really is not much of a difference compared to sliding down to ice the game instead of running in for the TD, besides that you look like an utter fool if you don't get it in after. That's literally the only thing that's holding teams back from doing so probably, but the Bengals did it, trusted their offense, and it worked, against the Chiefs.
I agree of course that once they decided to go for the TD and you see a man wide open, you gotta take that shot.
If you look back at that Bengals game, it was mighty close to not getting it done. I agree the “looking like mugsy malone” factor is primarily why teams don’t do it. But also, there is an angle that you trust your defence too. It’s easy with hindsight but i guess what it ultimately boils down to is a) % chances of scoring with x tries in x minutes/seconds inside the x yard line, vs b) % chances of your defence not allowing x yards (assuming a touchback) in x minutes of play to prevent a TD/FG, including % chance of the team making that FG. If you strip out the looking like a fool element, that’s the analytic that should be driving your choice real time.
I have seen others saying Lenny should have knelt at the 1, but purposely acting out the Bills scenario the way you described is a bridge too far.
Well you are close. It's like the golden goal, but not penalty, because like you said so yourself, the game works in two phases and even if one wins the coin toss, they still have to work their way towards the endzone. So it would be golden goal where one team is forced to defend only, until they get the ball back, then they attack. What's odd is that you clearly understood the differences but then fell back to the penalty shootout analogy which doesn't really apply here.
This is indeed what it comes down to for me. Not even going into the % chance that Mahomes gets 35-40 yards on 2 pass plays - given how the game went and how unstoppable Allen looked throughout, I'd back him to throw a TD on either one of the 2 ensuing tries as well just like he did on first down.
Like I said, I get why you'd consider it a no-go, obviously, but given how some games have been playing out lately it's at least something worth considering in certain scenarios.
Except it does. Who kicks first in a penalty shoot out is decided by a coin toss. Just like the NFL. In a penalty shout out you have an attacker (taker) and defender (keeper). That’s your two phases. In the next kick, you swap. So it’s exactly the same analogously. Sure, you don’t have half goals to mimic a field goal. And statistically scoring a penalty is easier than getting a touchdown. But principally it’s exactly the same. It’s that difference in difficulty to get a TD vs scoring a penalty which drives the rule as it is as being acceptable to the rule setters. But that doesn’t change the principle of what is happening.
Edit: and to your point of it being like golden goal, it’s not like that. The critical difference E between football is that it’s a fluid sport where the same players play in all phases at the same time. Your attackers are in the game and defending when you don’t have the ball. Likewise your defenders are still part of your attack when you go the other way. This is therefore fundamentally different to the NFL.
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The golden goal for general extra time in European football still allows both teams to win the ball off each other and attack each other's goals, so the penalty shootout example is actually the more apt one to describe what we saw in the Bills/Chiefs game.
To my mind, given context of time on clock etc. it would have made much more sense in the Bucs game compared to the Bills game.
More broadly speaking, this is related to something I’ve seen more of lately especially in the college game. Teams have been running the ball/playing conservative against great offenses for ages but now they’ve got it down to a science.
Like their whole meta on offense is running clock/limiting possessions instead of scoring points.
Managing the game clock is so important in this sport, yet something I still feel many head coaches just don’t get a hold of.
Yeah I generally agree with you, especially in the Bucs scenario. It's just easy to see why teams would prefer to take the shot as quickly as possible and then trust their defence to hold out, and the pressure is heightened tenfold in the playoffs.
I sure would like to see that kind of gutsy play calling in that scenario though.
There comes a time in most games where managing the clock is more important than anything else.
And it will happen, I think one day a new bold coaching mind who truly engages analytics at all levels will think through this scenario. I suspect we would see the same outcome in the Bills decision. But I can absolutely see a coach one day wanting Lenny to kneel there at the 1. The bengals game was a “lite” version.
Yep. I think HCs generally understand what to do when you get to the final few minutes in each half. But there is a whole other context to clock management which teams don’t yet fully embrace to gain an advantage.
HCs like Harbaugh or Vrabel are usually quite savvy at managing the clock and doing unorthodox things at the end of games. Doesn't always pay off but still...
Sean Payton does crazy things from time to time as well but guess he's just generally aggressive instead of innovative re: game and time management.
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