NFL Playoffs - Divisional Round game thread

What ONE team are you certain survives the Divisional Round?

  • Bengals

    Votes: 13 6.6%
  • Titans

    Votes: 20 10.2%
  • Chiefs

    Votes: 22 11.2%
  • Bills

    Votes: 5 2.5%
  • 49ers

    Votes: 10 5.1%
  • Packers

    Votes: 75 38.1%
  • Rams

    Votes: 5 2.5%
  • Buccaneers

    Votes: 47 23.9%

  • Total voters
    197
  • Poll closed .

snowmanny

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Dec 8, 2005
15,672
The rule isn't stupid because it gives the coin flip winner a big advantage. It's stupid because it changes the rules of the game at the most crucial time. The goal shouldn't be to make it 50/50. It should be to let the teams play a normal game until a team wins. So this stat doesn't mean anything.
They can’t do that because that was BB’s proposal.
 

luckiestman

Son of the Harpy
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Jul 15, 2005
32,622
I’m still LOL @ Sean calling timeouts to set up his #1 D 2x with 13 seconds and then less left and his guys choking the game away. At least that part is funny. I did want him to win, though.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
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Sep 9, 2008
42,297
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Not a fan of “tails never fails…”?
Aphorisms that are wrong, literally, exactly 50 percent of the time should be retired in my opinion.

Like if looking a gift horse in the mouth turned out to be a good strategy 500 out of 1,000 times or if the late bird often got the worm, I would feel the same way.
 

jose melendez

Earl of Acie
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By the way, what kind of sick twisted demented fucker calls tails?

You only get to complain about overtime rules if you didn’t call it or you called it and called heads.

People who call tails are bad people. It is one of those things in the world that tells you everything you need to know about a person.

Like if a person is a professional clown or mime. You know everything you need to know.

Tails? That was worse than not squibbing. I get that tails comes up as frequently as heads but if you are going to lose the flip lose on fucking heads.
Tails never fails.

Except this time. This time it failed.
 

Jungleland

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Aug 2, 2009
2,351
The OT rules are fine. The Bills lost the game with 13 seconds left when their coach and defensive coordinator both shoved their heads so far up their own asses that they both created singularities. I can’t stand the Chiefs and I see zero chance that they don’t win another Super Bowl in a few weeks. A full off season of listening to the Mahomes is already the GOAT will get old really fast.
I still really hate Tyreek Hill and I hope the Chiefs get their hearts ripped out in absolutely epic fashion sometime in the next three weeks, but I'm kind of over this part of it at this point. TB has 7 - that number is so stupidly high I'm not going to sweat it if Mahomes wins a couple a more.
 

soxin6

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Apr 23, 2010
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I still really hate Tyreek Hill and I hope the Chiefs get their hearts ripped out in absolutely epic fashion sometime in the next three weeks, but I'm kind of over this part of it at this point. TB has 7 - that number is so stupidly high I'm not going to sweat it if Mahomes wins a couple a more.
Hill is the reason that I loathe the Chiefs, but listening to the constant media garbage just gets old. As long as Hill is on that team, I hope they lose every game they play. Also, Jordan has shown that having the most rings doesn’t get you called the GOAT, so I am not sure that Brady’s rings will be enough forever.
 

Mystic Merlin

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Hill is the reason that I loathe the Chiefs, but listening to the constant media garbage just gets old. As long as Hill is on that team, I hope they lose every game they play. Also, Jordan has shown that having the most rings doesn’t get you called the GOAT, so I am not sure that Brady’s rings will be enough forever.
Er, I’m not sure the Jordan example supports your point?
 

Senator Donut

post-Domer
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Apr 21, 2010
5,502
I don’t like the 25 yard line for touchbacks in OT.
I seen some number-crunchers suggest that if the first team started at its own 15, winning probabilities would be roughly equal for both teams. That seems like the easiest solution that also takes out the kickoff, which is the most harmful type of game situation for player safety.
 

glennhoffmania

meat puppet
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I never understood why most rings equals GOAT anyway. It's not like one guy is winning by himself.
 

Jungleland

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Aug 2, 2009
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All due respect to Bill Russell, unfairly or not, history is almost certainly going to be kinder to the guys who played on HDTV and in a salary capped league of 31-32 teams.
 

Jungleland

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Aug 2, 2009
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Dont think Jordan played on HDTV
Ha, might have skipped a couple connecting dots in there. I mean in terms of Brady’s legacy re: Mahomes. Think those circumstances dictate someone’s going to need to get close to or surpass 7 to be the MJ to his Bill.
 

cornwalls@6

Less observant than others
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Apr 23, 2010
6,249
from the wilds of western ma
Fell off the thread for the second game. Apologies for the likely redundancy. But that was the best divisional weekend I’ve ever seen.God, no wonder this is the most popular sport in America. At my core, I’ll always be a baseball guy. But this was impossible to top theater.
 

CFB_Rules

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Nov 29, 2016
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As of 2019, coin toss winners prevail more often in college (54.9%) than in the NFL (52.7%)

We can’t really get any closer to 50/50 unless we adopt radical rules like a soccer-style 2-point shootout. The current system is pretty damn good, as it involves all three phases of the game and overall bears a close resemblence to the conditions under which regulation time is contested.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/01/22/coin-toss-would-remain-important-if-ot-rule-is-tweaked/
In the playoffs since the current OT rules were put into place the coin toss winner is 9-1 in winning the game. Seems like if your team is any good it is a huge advantage.

The one loss by a coin toss winner was by the Saints to the Rams with the missed DPI
 

GrandSlamPozo

New Member
May 16, 2017
105
That would completely change end of game strategy if the score is tied. I like a team having to rush if they have the ball in a tie game with just a few minutes left, if the rules were changed to just continue playing there's be absolutely no urgency when the score is tied.
But if they played with zero urgency then after OT starts they would still need a TD to prevent the other team from getting a possession. So obviously it would be preferable to win in regulation.
 

ngruz25

Bibby
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Sep 20, 2005
18,976
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MLB should change the extra innings rules so that both teams get to bat in the 10th inning, except for when someone scores two runs in the top of the 10th inning, in which case the game ends. If both teams score the same number of runs in the 10th inning, the game becomes sudden death with the first team to score declared the winner.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
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Jul 15, 2005
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Haven't read the thread at all as I was behind on the game, sorry, but if you asked me the best football game I ever saw, my answer for basically my whole life would have been the 41-38 SD/MIA game in 1981, but I think that KC/BUF game just topped it. Did that really just happen?
 

jsinger121

@jsinger121
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Jul 25, 2005
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Another thing about the Bills. Don’t lose to the likes of Jacksonville and this game is in Orchard Park as opposed to Arrowhead.
 

Mystic Merlin

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Still can't believe that the Bills lost that game. What a disastrous loss.
From a process over results POV, I need to know why McDermott kicked a TB there. Like, were they just unprepared/froze, or did they really think that was the right move after having walked through game scenarios well before this game?

I don’t know which is worse, but the specific nature of the fuckup is of interest.
 

BigSoxFan

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May 31, 2007
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From a process over results POV, I need to know why McDermott kicked a TB there. Like, were they just unprepared/froze, or did they really think that was the right move after having walked through game scenarios well before this game?

I don’t know which is worse, but the specific nature of the fuckup is of interest.
If he did that intentionally, he probably thought there was no way Mahomes was getting them in field position and wanted to prevent a ST TD. Like, did Hill’s TD scar him or something? Just really weird. This feels like a potential career-defining moment for McDermott.
 
Last edited:

DeadlySplitter

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Oct 20, 2015
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I do'nt want to forget the Bills punted waht... 4 times tonight? They ran the ball too much especially with Mathieu out. The Chiefs were prepared for a lot of designed Allen runs, too.

Bills could have blown this out with more efficiency on O (not that it wasn't good, but needed to be great tonight)

From a process over results POV, I need to know why McDermott kicked a TB there. Like, were they just unprepared/froze, or did they really think that was the right move after having walked through game scenarios well before this game?

I don’t know which is worse, but the specific nature of the fuckup is of interest.
I need to know too but we'll never know...
 

E5 Yaz

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Cotillion

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Jun 11, 2019
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The real question is will we see the media go on a multi-day bender about Allen not getting a chance to touch the ball like they did when Mahomes was on the short end of the coin toss stick in the AFCCG.
 

Silverdude2167

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Oct 9, 2006
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That will be the Bills mantra next season. Hammer their team total over. Going 14-3 or even 15-2 next season.
Nah the Bills and their HC are arrogant.
They won't learn anything from this loss and season that will make them go 14-3 or whatever. They will act like they have already won something and we should bow down to them.

You saw how McDermott reacted to underperforming this season, by throwing the rest of his staff under the bus. If not for a very easy end of the schedule they probably don't even make the playoffs. Hell have they probably miss the playoffs this year if they had to play the Cowboys and not the WFT.

I hate the Chiefs, but I am so happy the Bills lost.

Now let's see Cincy and SF take us back to 1982.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
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Thing is, in todays NFL no defense can reliably stop a great offense. Any given day you might but it’s simply an offense league now
This, and I said in another game thread that I don’t like it. Not Granpa Simpsoning it (ok maybe I am), but it’s a better game if it’s not a track meet. For example I get really tired of Big XII where the team that holds thr opponent to 5TDs and a FG wins by 4.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
24,483
The 718
Think of it this way: There's ZERO chance that they'll ever get as good a playoff performance as Allen gave them these two games, and they didn't even manage to make it to the AFCCG.

Two games for Allen:

48-62 (77.4%), 637 yds, 10.3 y/a, 9 td, 0 int, 149.0 rating, 17 rush, 134 yds, 7.9 y/a

They're never getting that again.
Why not?

I hate the Bills but he’s the real deal.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
24,483
The 718
You'd have to make sure that they don't get far enough downfield to draw a significant PI penalty, but this totally seems like the way to go. Hold for 8 seconds, give up the penalty and give them one untimed down.
Or you could, like, cover them.
 

Justthetippett

New Member
Aug 9, 2015
2,393
"We talk about a lot of things," Bills head coach Sean McDermott said when asked about the decision to kick it deep. "I'm just going to leave it at execution and it starts with me."

https://www.nfl.com/news/chiefs-andy-reid-to-patrick-mahomes-before-game-tying-drive-when-it-s-grim-go-be
I give it 48 hours tops until we hear more explicitly from a source that the plan was to make KC return (have the kick land at the five) and the kicker didn’t pull it off.

Separately, it’s got to be a weird day to be a Bills’ fan. On the one hand, you now know for certain that you’ve got a Bugatti in the garage with Allen. On the other, you know (or should know), that windows in the NFL are finicky and short. Hello darkness my old friend.
 

Remagellan

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I rewatched the end of the game on NFL Network, and Romo made a great point prior to the pass to Kelce that set up the FG. The Bills rushed four on that play. He suggested they should have rushed three and dropped the fourth guy into coverage, because with 8 seconds left, Mahomes was going to throwing the ball quickly anyway, so that extra rusher would have been better deployed in coverage (like maybe doubling Kelce).
 

wilked

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Jul 17, 2005
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Worse coaching mistake: Blitzing the corner covering Kupp or kicking into the end zone with 13 seconds left? Tough choice…
 

Justthetippett

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Aug 9, 2015
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Worse coaching mistake: Blitzing the corner covering Kupp or kicking into the end zone with 13 seconds left? Tough choice…
Kupp for me. Leaving the best receiver on the planet one on one against a safety is inexplicable. It’s like they wanted to lose.
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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Oct 23, 2001
10,231
I rewatched the end of the game on NFL Network, and Romo made a great point prior to the pass to Kelce that set up the FG. The Bills rushed four on that play. He suggested they should have rushed three and dropped the fourth guy into coverage, because with 8 seconds left, Mahomes was going to throwing the ball quickly anyway, so that extra rusher would have been better deployed in coverage (like maybe doubling Kelce).
They also had two safeties about 40 yards behind the line of scrimmage on that play. Seemed like they were defending against the long TD play when what they needed was to stop a 15 yard pass to set up the field goal. They were completely uninvolved in the play - no Chief receiver was within 20 yards of either of them.
 

Super Nomario

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I do'nt want to forget the Bills punted waht... 4 times tonight? They ran the ball too much especially with Mathieu out. The Chiefs were prepared for a lot of designed Allen runs, too.

Bills could have blown this out with more efficiency on O (not that it wasn't good, but needed to be great tonight)

I need to know too but we'll never know...
Buffalo scored 36 points on only 9 drives. It's not really realistic to be any more efficient than that.
 

Mugsy's Jock

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Bills had goddamned better well call “Heads”
Just doing a victory lap on my post immediately after regulation last night. And my sig. I will be fielding offers for multi-million dollar NFL head coaching opportunities starting at 930am this morning, after my oatmeal.

Tails is for flatearthers.