NFL 2022 Season

[Tree13]

Strength of schedule starts to become significant at this stage of the season. Two big examples:

NFC East: Eagles currently 9-1, Cowboys and Giants both 7-3... But look who each of them has left to play. Based on remaining opponents you have to doubt if the Giants have any shot of making the playoffs. Cowboys and Eagles however both look firm bets.

AFC race for the last playoff spot: currently the Patriots, the Jets and the Bengals are all 6-4 and all in contention... But Cincinnati's remaining schedule is brutal. So much so that the Chargers (currently 5-5) will almost certainly leapfrog Cincinnati AND the Jets by the time January arrives.

So many things to like about this sport. Even the way the scheduling has been put together is clever.

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

It's really weird that more teams haven't rushed 3 and made Mahomes think. The Cincinnati model should be the playbook defensively until he can prove he can beat it.

To be fair this is what teams did all last year against him - and Mahomes had a pretty down year, at least from a fantasy perspective.

He's the type you can't let him beat you on "broken" plays. He's good enough to beat you a bunch of ways, but yeah, i think dropping a ton of guys in coverage and not letting him make big plays is your best option. And if your defensive line is great, like what Tampa did to him in the super bowl, without having bring more guys on the blitz, you'd have a decent shot

 

[Kev The Rat]

To be fair this is what teams did all last year against him - and Mahomes had a pretty down year, at least from a fantasy perspective.

He's the type you can't let him beat you on "broken" plays. He's good enough to beat you a bunch of ways, but yeah, i think dropping a ton of guys in coverage and not letting him make big plays is your best option. And if your defensive line is great, like what Tampa did to him in the super bowl, without having bring more guys on the blitz, you'd have a decent shot

I keep hearing this and there is some merit IF you have an all-world front 4.

Cincy didn’t though and in reality just caught lightning in a bottle on the day. The Chiefs missed about 10 sacks on Burrow that he had no business getting out of for example. Mahomes inexplicably ignored open receivers on the final drive of regulation that would have won it. These are not outcomes that you can count on being repeated in any way.

The other issue is losing Hill has encouraged him to look to other targets and spread it around. Not sure his ‘new’ approach is easily countered by just dropping people back.

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

I keep hearing this and there is some merit IF you have an all-world front 4.

Cincy didn’t though and in reality just caught lightning in a bottle on the day. The Chiefs missed about 10 sacks on Burrow that he had no business getting out of for example. Mahomes inexplicably ignored open receivers on the final drive of regulation that would have won it. These are not outcomes that you can count on being repeated in any way.

The other issue is losing Hill has encouraged him to look to other targets and spread it around. Not sure his ‘new’ approach is easily countered by just dropping people back.

Yeah I mean there's no easy way to stop a great QB. A lot of things need to come together to make it happen. It's like there's a way that a team can play to beat Man City, it doesn't mean anyone can execute it effectively. Or even if you do, they still might put 3 past you.

I'm just saying that if you flush him from the pocket and don't sack him and have to bring more bodies to get pressure, he's gonna kill you for sure.

Your only chance is bring a great 3 or 4 to the table, keep him in the pocket, and force him to execute time and again on the shorter throws

 

[Tree13]

I keep hearing this and there is some merit IF you have an all-world front 4.

Cincy didn’t though and in reality just caught lightning in a bottle on the day. The Chiefs missed about 10 sacks on Burrow that he had no business getting out of for example. Mahomes inexplicably ignored open receivers on the final drive of regulation that would have won it. These are not outcomes that you can count on being repeated in any way.

The other issue is losing Hill has encouraged him to look to other targets and spread it around. Not sure his ‘new’ approach is easily countered by just dropping people back.

What are the odds on a team "catching lightning in a bottle" TWICE in the same season against the same opponent?

Your analysis is that the occurences in the AFC championship game last year were freak outliers that could never be repeated... Except those occurences were themselves repeats of the regular season fixture on Jan 2nd 2022, where Burrow threw for 446 yards and 4 tds but Mahomes could only muster 259 and 2.

When the same two teams met in the AFC championship game, Mahomes performed WORSE than he did in the regular season fixture, throwing 2 interceptions against fairly basic coverage. So did Cincinnati get lucky once, and then even luckier four weeks later?

Cincinnati doubled Tyreek Hill all game, rushed 3 ( BJ Hill, Reader and Hendrickson mostly ), left the 2 linebackers in short zones, left 3 DBs in deep zones and put Hubbard ( a DE) on spy assignment. The whole defensive scheme was "We're taking away Hill. Sit in your pocket and find an open receiver." - it flummoxed Mahomes and he will no doubt have spent much of the summer studying the game film ( just as Burrow will have with the footage from the Superbowl ).

For the hundredth time: take your eye off the ball. You're missing more than 50% of everything you claim to be "watching".

 

[Tree13]

To be fair this is what teams did all last year against him - and Mahomes had a pretty down year, at least from a fantasy perspective.

He's the type you can't let him beat you on "broken" plays. He's good enough to beat you a bunch of ways, but yeah, i think dropping a ton of guys in coverage and not letting him make big plays is your best option. And if your defensive line is great, like what Tampa did to him in the super bowl, without having bring more guys on the blitz, you'd have a decent shot

This is probably why Kansas have tried to establish a better running game recently. If teams do sit back in deep, multi-layered zones designed to force Mahomes into passing errors they can just run the ball instead. They got 7 yards a carry last week from 15 carries by a guy I've never heard of before - that's incredible, and shows another facet of their very good OL.

 

[Kev The Rat]

This is probably why Kansas have tried to establish a better running game recently. If teams do sit back in deep, multi-layered zones designed to force Mahomes into passing errors they can just run the ball instead. They got 7 yards a carry last week from 15 carries by a guy I've never heard of before - that's incredible, and shows another facet of their very good OL.

Wrong. They’ve had no serious running game all season. Last week was the first 100 yard rusher in a year.

 

[Kev The Rat]

What are the odds on a team "catching lightning in a bottle" TWICE in the same season against the same opponent?

Your analysis is that the occurences in the AFC championship game last year were freak outliers that could never be repeated... Except those occurences were themselves repeats of the regular season fixture on Jan 2nd 2022, where Burrow threw for 446 yards and 4 tds but Mahomes could only muster 259 and 2.

When the same two teams met in the AFC championship game, Mahomes performed WORSE than he did in the regular season fixture, throwing 2 interceptions against fairly basic coverage. So did Cincinnati get lucky once, and then even luckier four weeks later?

Cincinnati doubled Tyreek Hill all game, rushed 3 ( BJ Hill, Reader and Hendrickson mostly ), left the 2 linebackers in short zones, left 3 DBs in deep zones and put Hubbard ( a DE) on spy assignment. The whole defensive scheme was "We're taking away Hill. Sit in your pocket and find an open receiver." - it flummoxed Mahomes and he will no doubt have spent much of the summer studying the game film ( just as Burrow will have with the footage from the Superbowl ).

For the hundredth time: take your eye off the ball. You're missing more than 50% of everything you claim to be "watching".

I am calling them outliers because what you are proposing is that Cincy and seemingly ONLY Cincy have the secret ingredients to frustrating Mahomes. I'm not buying it. Think about that statement for a minute, and you will realise how unrealistic it is. In both games the Chiefs blew double digit leads. For comparison Mahomes is 14-9 when FACED with a double digit defecit which is the only winning percentage in NFL history.

As for the matchups themselves, I have no idea why Mahomes ignored wide open Kelce and Hill in the end zone on the final drive of regulation in the championship game. But if you look at the coaches film both were indeed running wide open as Mahomes stood around under no pressure. This was NOT the blanket coverage you seem to think it was.

 

[Tree13]

Wrong. They’ve had no serious running game all season. Last week was the first 100 yard rusher in a year.

That's exactly what I just pointed out, so how can you agree with it AND declare that I'm wrong?

You do understand that I'm praising the Chiefs OL, the RB in question AND the coaching decision to work on the run game, right?

 

[Tree13]

I am calling them outliers because what you are proposing is that Cincy and seemingly ONLY Cincy have the secret ingredients to frustrating Mahomes. I'm not buying it. Think about that statement for a minute, and you will realise how unrealistic it is. In both games the Chiefs blew double digit leads. For comparison Mahomes is 14-9 when FACED with a double digit defecit which is the only winning percentage in NFL history.

As for the matchups themselves, I have no idea why Mahomes ignored wide open Kelce and Hill in the end zone on the final drive of regulation in the championship game. But if you look at the coaches film both were indeed running wide open as Mahomes stood around under no pressure. This was NOT the blanket coverage you seem to think it was.

Your arguments don't support your conclusions. In fact, your arguments directly contradict your conclusions. For starters, if Mahomes is 14-9 when leading by double digits, that means he's lost seven OTHER games (not just the two against the Bengals) from big winning positions. So clearly there is something to be examined in those seven games, no? Or did all seven of those opponents ALSO just "catch lightning in a bottle"?

And I didn't claim that ONLY Cincinnati has the secret ingredients for frustrating Mahomes. I just disagreed with your superficial suggestion that they "caught lightning in a bottle" in the Championship game, because it's laughable to suggest that and ignore the fact that the Chiefs lost twice in five weeks to the same opponent, in the same manner (giving up early leads), when it can be clearly demonstrated that the opponent in question made defensive adjustments between those two games to target weaknesses in the Kansas offense. Successfully. As evidenced by picking off the QB you claim to be "the best the NFL has ever seen" TWICE and apparently convincing him to just not pass to open receivers.

(EDIT: what ACTUALLY happened was that the Bengals mixed their coverages up a LOT - the interception right at the end, for instance, saw Hill left "open" by his corner, but only because he was being doubled by the two safeties who both lined up pre-snap as if they were in a two-deep zone. Mahomes ignored Kelce one-on-one against a LB in an underneath zone because he thought Hill had beaten the corner on a deep out. End result: Bell and Bates in bracket coverage get the interception, Bengals win.)

In reality, they were both close games and the Cincinnati D slightly edged Mahomes out both times. That's all. It doesn't make Mahomes terrible, nor does it mean Cincinnati has some kind of world-beating D. It just points to small factors in the overall matchup and one coaching staff making better adjustments than the other.

 

[Prevenger17]

I am calling them outliers because what you are proposing is that Cincy and seemingly ONLY Cincy have the secret ingredients to frustrating Mahomes. I'm not buying it. Think about that statement for a minute, and you will realise how unrealistic it is. In both games the Chiefs blew double digit leads. For comparison Mahomes is 14-9 when FACED with a double digit defecit which is the only winning percentage in NFL history.

As for the matchups themselves, I have no idea why Mahomes ignored wide open Kelce and Hill in the end zone on the final drive of regulation in the championship game. But if you look at the coaches film both were indeed running wide open as Mahomes stood around under no pressure. This was NOT the blanket coverage you seem to think it was.

Your arguments don't support your conclusions. In fact, your arguments directly contradict your conclusions. For starters, if Mahomes is 14-9 when leading by double digits, that means he's lost seven OTHER games (not just the two against the Bengals) from big winning positions. So clearly there is something to be examined in those seven games, no? Or did all seven of those opponents ALSO just "catch lightning in a bottle"?

And I didn't claim that ONLY Cincinnati has the secret ingredients for frustrating Mahomes. I just disagreed with your superficial suggestion that they "caught lightning in a bottle" in the Championship game, because it's laughable to suggest that and ignore the fact that the Chiefs lost twice in five weeks to the same opponent, in the same manner (giving up early leads), when it can be clearly demonstrated that the opponent in question made defensive adjustments between those two games to target weaknesses in the Kansas offense. Successfully. As evidenced by picking off the QB you claim to be "the best the NFL has ever seen" TWICE and apparently convincing him to just not pass to open receivers.

(EDIT: what ACTUALLY happened was that the Bengals mixed their coverages up a LOT - the interception right at the end, for instance, saw Hill left "open" by his corner, but only because he was being doubled by the two safeties who both lined up pre-snap as if they were in a two-deep zone. Mahomes ignored Kelce one-on-one against a LB in an underneath zone because he thought Hill had beaten the corner on a deep out. End result: Bell and Bates in bracket coverage get the interception, Bengals win.)

In reality, they were both close games and the Cincinnati D slightly edged Mahomes out both times. That's all. It doesn't make Mahomes terrible, nor does it mean Cincinnati has some kind of world-beating D. It just points to small factors in the overall matchup and one coaching staff making better adjustments than the other.

Lads, stop this nonsense. Jimmy G is going to clobber whichever one of your unworthy teams puts its head on the block. Niners are going to the MOON

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

Lads, stop this nonsense. Jimmy G is going to clobber whichever one of your unworthy teams puts its head on the block. Niners are going to the MOON

To be fair, the Niners have the type of defense that could slow down Mahomes/Allen, etc. some.

They could also run the ball down KC's throats, eating up clock. It very nearly worked when the met in the super bowl

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

Wrong. They’ve had no serious running game all season. Last week was the first 100 yard rusher in a year.

I do think KC needs to run the ball, just a little bit more. Keeps the defensive line a little more honest.

If they run it, even just 5-7% more, i think it makes their offense better overall

 

[Tree13]

Lads, stop this nonsense. Jimmy G is going to clobber whichever one of your unworthy teams puts its head on the block. Niners are going to the MOON

I would rather not see my beautiful Bengals have to face the 49ers in ANOTHER Superbowl, thanks. The last two were both heartbreaking - even if watching Rice and Montana in action was a privilege!

Picking up McCaffery may well be the single best personnel move in the entire league this season. If you sweep Seattle then you'll have real momentum.

 

[Tree13]

I do think KC needs to run the ball, just a little bit more. Keeps the defensive line a little more honest.

If they run it, even just 5-7% more, i think it makes their offense better overall

100% agree with this. It would force teams to commit more defenders in the box on first and second down .