To be fair, in their very next game the refs overturned a crucial 4th down catch by Dez Bryant, where he took 3 steps with control of the ball before it slightly moved upon hitting the ground.
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Haven’t seen data on this but eye test says backups are more susceptible to injury than starters. They hold the ball longer, they make worse decisions, they’re less skilled at evading pressure. All of these factors are amplified in a CCG against a top pass rush and you have to throw. Even if they had a QB5 to step in, seems reasonably likely that he dies too and we’re back where we started.
Yeah the bottom line is that virtually all teams are 100% fucked after losing QB1 and QB2 in a game, regardless of whether QB3 exists. Sure it made that game even less watchable that there wasn’t one, but it’s not like having that roster spot would have magically made the situation any “fairer” for SF or anything. This is a situation that occurs in <1% of playoff games anyway.
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With all the talk of potential riggage in the CIN/KC game, one thing I think got lost in the shuffle is this bizarre playcalling decision by the Bengals, this really annoyed me and I’m not sure if it got discussed upthread.
After that long Burrow scramble that wiped out a 2nd & long, and then a 7-hard Mixon run, CIN had the ball with about 7:00 remaining and a running clock, somewhere short of their own 40. Given that you just gashed them on the ground twice, this looks like the classic situation where you should at least try to impose your will on a tired defense, and with a little luck, there’s a chance to kill most if not all the clock and never have to worry about giving the ball back to Mahomes and whatever refball awaits. At the very least, you have to try to pick up this first down on the ground and get a better handle on how well they’re stopping the run.
So what do the Bengals do? They throw two 40-yard jump balls on the next two plays, the second of which got picked off for what was essentially an arm punt. This was a huge head-scratcher for me. It feels like the only upside is that if you bink a catch or DPI then you’re in FG range already with a chance to score, but you’re guaranteeing giving KC like an hour to come back and tie/win it. And the downside is what actually happened, you pissed away a possession where you had the defense reeling a little bit by running two shitty low-percentage plays.
I feel like the Bills were in love with this strat in the MIA game too, it’s like “hmm, we’re trailing early against a vastly inferior opponent that we should be able to overpower through normal low-variance play? Yeah, time to chuck the ball 50 yards downfield on 3rd & 2 for fun.”
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yeah that josh allen pick toward the end of the first half in the mia game was like a 1/10 on the awareness scale. mia had done absolutely nothing up to that point, buf was gashing them for like 10 yards a carry, and he just makes a contested downfield throw into double coverage and lets mia back into the game i guess because he was bored and needed to do something flashy. thats one of the main difference between old brady/mahomes and the next tier guys like herbert/allen, they will just beat you to death with whatever is working until you prove you can stop it, doesnt matter if its the same play 100 times in a row.
and this may be nitpicky but i also thought cincy was a little premature with using their timeouts at the end of the game, with mahomes on the other sideline, tie game, your team has the ball, you shouldnt really ever be calling timeouts with 45+ seconds on the clock. id take a slightly lower % at a FG to guarantee he never gets the ball back in regulation.
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Agreed on the TO usage for sure. After Burrow converted that 3rd-and-long to Hurst, I said to myself ok, that 100% guarantees the game is going to OT at worst, barring a turnover. I don’t know how they managed to fuck it up as badly as they did.
https://twitter.com/BenjaminSolak/status/1620183105373097984
Good breakdown on the 4th and 6 play to Chase that worked, and then a very similar play that resulted in the arm punt.
If Williams can just keep his feet there it’s a lot worse than an arm punt - he was free to run to midfield. And of course the big play was Cook breaking it up in the first place. That was going to be a huge completion w/o Cook’s play.
Clearly they thought this was a good play vs. a rookie safety our our 3rd best rookie corner, both of whom haven’t played a whole lot this season.
This was one of my big frustrations with the previous games vs. Cincy. It seemed like these bomb plays to Chase and Higgins worked for them every single damn time. Just by sheer odds they have to fail some of the time. Some variance finally caught up to them.
That was the rule at that point. Good old Calvin Johnson rule. Lions lol
I’ve been saying that their offensive play calling is pure button clicking. Chris Long rewatched the tape and noticed that they weren’t dialing up deeper throws when Chris Jones was out of the game, and throwing that awful jump ball instead of clocking it before half was a disaster. Greg Cosell and Chris Simms (tape watchers) both said that it’s a very basic offense that lacks creativity. They also seem to crater if there’s an in-game plot twist like Boyd going down which resulted in Chase and Higgins both getting bracketed. Like basically it looks scripted and they are bad at situational decisions and in-game adjustments. There might be some real hilarity here if Colts hire Brian Callahan and Anarumo doesn’t get an offer anywhere.
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I was thinking Deebo but yeah. If they’re bringing in a guy who literally can’t throw just start taking a knee, what’s the difference?
But maybe giving up is actually the best option there. Deebo or McCaffery would have like a .1% win equity instead of 0.
As a general fan I’d much rather see the bolded than a practice squad QB. Way more fun.
I still contend that he did enough to establish himself as a runner though, which makes surviving the ground immaterial. Or at least it was close enough that there’s no way they should be overturning the call on the field, which was a catch.
When (most) people complain about riggage, they don’t mean that Rodger and his minions have implemented a nefarious plot to guarantee the result of specific games. It’s more that the rules (and changing plays/calls by skyjudge/New York) get applied inconsistently, and implicit biases end up having undue influence on outcomes. Much like everyone watching the game have preferred outcomes, so do those mysterious folks that have their hands on some of those strings.
Now, I can make a case that poor/inconsistent/rigged officiating makes for a BETTER or at least more engaging product, as sportsball enjoyers LOVE complaining about officiating.
I think most NFL teams could probably do an OK job stopping this even if they have to play a safety in a spot you’d rather have a linebacker, right?
Yeah nfl defensive players are too fast for this to work over an extended period of time. Too much defensive recovery makes it really hard to pull off.
This. Outside of normal human bias and momentum, I think it’s almost impossible there aren’t officials who are looking at ideal spots to move the game in a specific direction.
With live betting the possibilities are endless.
Of course, this is true in real life also and you just have to overcome it if you really want to win.
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I dunno. Wasn’t there a lot made out of the fact that teams were having a lot of success running the ball this year because everyone has blown their cap space defending the pass? As a thought experiment, try to recall as many of the “punt and trust your defense” end game situations where teams were nearly 100% certain to run three times and kick. Those seem to result in 1st downs way more often than I’d think, and sometimes multiple 1st downs. If you can run hot and string a couple drives like that together, it really chews the clock and limits total possessions.
And the Patriots had that one game where they put in three tight ends (one was an extra tackle I thing) and ran almost every play. That can work, no doubt, but in that case and the late game run three times approach they’ve got a QB under center who’s an actual threat to pass the ball. With a QB who literally cannot throw? That’s a very different thing. There’s a difference between defending against an offense where you think they’re running the ball versus an offense where you know they’re running the ball.
Well I’m saying Run CMC would have to show Pass CMC as a credible threat there for it to work. Seems like he throws a decent enough ball.
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