NFL Playoffs 2023

[Rhom]

Lonesome Kicker indeed.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

57 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I'm still waiting for you to explain why you think this. 

I genuinely have been unable to find much positive commentary on Taylor outside of literally the two of you.  He's an average coach, but average coaches with great QBs can still win. Honestly most of them are just like QBs, there are a few great ones, a few bad ones, and then the middle is just random to some extent.

 

[briantw]

Tonight was a true "the wicked witch is dead" moment. 

[Nictarion]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

Oh and one more thing, Lamar played Bengals this year and scored 19 pts. He scored 17 pts last year. I'm not entirely sure he would have been the savior Ravens fans hoped for. 

I don’t think so either. Lamar has been mostly terrible in the playoffs, and he would have been coming in after 5 weeks of not even practicing. 

And sorry if I’m not trying to hear the excuses. The Bengals were down to 2 starters on their offensive line. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

12 minutes ago, briantw said:

Tonight was a true "the wicked witch is dead" moment. 

I care about you. Don't do it. He's going to Miami and playing 5 more years.

[dbunting]

Man it's nice waking up this morning and not having to hear Steven ass Smith running his mouth. Not hearing everywhere that Dallas choked, last road win, Tom has more playoff wins than....

Won the game handily. Hopefully Maher has gotten rid of the yips with that last X-point being good.  Suffered a few more injuries though. Have to say after the other playoff games I watched this weekend I didn't think any lead was safe! 

[Mexal]

8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I genuinely have been unable to find much positive commentary on Taylor outside of literally the two of you.  He's an average coach, but average coaches with great QBs can still win. Honestly most of them are just like QBs, there are a few great ones, a few bad ones, and then the middle is just random to some extent.

 

Yea, can't say I'm impressed with the "no one else is saying positive things therefore I'll go with that" reasoning. That's literally all you got yet you say with authority that Taylor is an average coach. Lack of positive things about the Bengals organization is fairly common. The Bengals are like one of 6 teams without an All-Pro on the team. 4 of those 6 teams have a top 5 pick and the other is the Jags. Yet, we finished 12-4, controlled our destiny for #2 seed until the league took that away and finished the season on a 8 game winning streak. 

Might I suggest you stop basing your opinion of a coach on the commentary that you can't find and instead listen to the reasoning of the guys who follow the team the closest? If you can't disagree with that reasoning (which you haven't in the past) then maybe it's because it's right even if commentators aren't talking about it? 

8 hours ago, Nictarion said:

I don’t think so either. Lamar has been mostly terrible in the playoffs, and he would have been coming in after 5 weeks of not even practicing. 

And sorry if I’m not trying to hear the excuses. The Bengals were down to 2 starters on their offensive line. 

3 once Williams went down.

[dbunting]

18 hours ago, Trebla said:

Sigh, well, I'm fully expecting the Cowboys to AGAIN lose tonight to the Bucs and Brady. Pretty much everything points to it: They've never beaten Brady, they haven't been able to run on Tampa's D, Dallas hasn't won an away playoff game in 30 years, they haven't won on a grass field since like 2017, etc. It would be great to finally get that win vs. Brady in the playoffs and what could be his last ever game. But it is the Cowboys we are talking about. They are the epitome of underachievers.

If nothing else Dallas exorcised a few of those demons last night, Brady not undefeated vs Dallas, won on grass, won road play off game. Now lets see what they do against the one with the Purdy mouth

[Nictarion]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

3 once Williams went down

Right, I said we were down to 2 starters.

They were without their best overall lineman in Cappa, their starting LT, and their best run blocker in Collins. And still managed to win against what had been a top 3 defense as of late. 

You have to give the coaching some credit at that point. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Mexal said:

Yea, can't say I'm impressed with the "no one else is saying positive things therefore I'll go with that" reasoning. 

Might I suggest you stop basing your opinion of a coach on the commentary that you can't find

Oh I can find you lots of commentary that says he's not a very good coach. What I've said over and over is the people I listen to and trust most about the game, who are more informed than you or I, almost never have anything nice to say about Taylor. If Burrow turned out to be Zach Wilson, he would have already been fired.

[DireWolfSpirit]

11 hours ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

Brady sacrificed his marriage to have this performance. Yikes. 

Im reevaluating that narrative to whether Gisele might have turned sour on Tom more for the fortune in blown crypto investment. Apparently Gisele, Tom and Robert Kraft all lost tens of milllions when the FTX exchange went bellyup.

Tom may be still working because he has to

[Maithanet]

Even if Tom and Gisele's investments all lost 80%, they would still have enough money for their children to never need to work.  IMO the idea that Brady is still playing because he needs the money is pretty farfetched. 

[Trebla]

36 minutes ago, dbunting said:

If nothing else Dallas exorcised a few of those demons last night, Brady not undefeated vs Dallas, won on grass, won road play off game. Now lets see what they do against the one with the Purdy mouth

I do love being wrong! They nearly played a complete game. There have been a few times this seasons where the offense, defense, and special teams all played well: Minnesota, Indy, LA Rams, Detroit. The offense and defense played well, obviously the special teams imploded. I agree with Troy Aikman that that was Dak Prescott's best game ever. He was just locked in. Parsons and the defense also played outstanding. But the big thing was the running game. They were finally able to run on Tampa. Pollard was able to get chunk runs when in the past they were getting stuffed at the line. I wonder if playing Tyler Smith at guard helped open holes. He's way more powerful than Connor McGovern.

[ljkeane]

39 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Im reevaluating that narrative to whether Gisele might have turned sour on Tom more for the fortune in blown crypto investment. Apparently Gisele, Tom and Robert Kraft all lost tens of milllions when the FTX exchange went bellyup.

Tom may be still working because he has to/cdn-cgi/mirage/bc47d56566b199a6b5c5a9d42c8b58924c2410613bafccc017177c69ad97ef3c/1280/https://asoiaf.westeros.org/uploads/emoticons/default_eek.gif

Doesn’t he have a massive tv analyst deal lined up for whenever he retires from playing?

[Cas Stark]

38 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Im reevaluating that narrative to whether Gisele might have turned sour on Tom more for the fortune in blown crypto investment. Apparently Gisele, Tom and Robert Kraft all lost tens of milllions when the FTX exchange went bellyup.

Tom may be still working because he has to

I hadn't heard that, but Gisele is supposedly worth more than $300M on her own, not counting Tom's money, which is over $200M, that's a combined net worth of half a billion.  Unless they put almost all of their money in crypto, which would be nuts, they are still very, very rich even if they lost a few tens of million.

I think Tom is addicted to football, this is why he came back and part of why he's now divorced.  

[Nictarion]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Oh I can find you lots of commentary that says he's not a very good coach. What I've said over and over is the people I listen to and trust most about the game, who are more informed than you or I, almost never have anything nice to say about Taylor. If Burrow turned out to be Zach Wilson, he would have already been fired.

Who are these “well informed” people you trust, and how old are these opinions? 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

29 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

Who are these “well informed” people you trust, and how old are these opinions? 

Bomani Jones, Mina Kimes and Domonique Foxworth for starters. They're all excellent and think he's at best meh. I could list a lot more names if you want, and the same general opinion remains, meh. Andy Reid with Burrow and those receivers would be sooo much more fun. Don't lie, you'd want to see it.

[Maithanet]

I don't know that "Andy Reid would probably be better" is much of a criticism.  Andy Reid is the best offensive coach of the past 20 years. 

[Nictarion]

15 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I don't know that "Andy Reid would probably be better" is much of a criticism.  Andy Reid is the best offensive coach of the past 20 years. 

Exactly. 

He’s also 0-3 against Zac Taylor.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I don't know that "Andy Reid would probably be better" is much of a criticism.  Andy Reid is the best offensive coach of the past 20 years. 

That's kind of the point though. We know he's a good coach. Our evidence that Taylor is basically, "Shit Joe Burrow is fucking good" when Burrow was clearly excellent before he got there. I get the argument that Mex made that Taylor has changed a lot of the culture, but to me he's still just a guy until I see something more.