10-1 for playoff teams that win the OT coin flip, and that 1 was the Rams Saints game where the officials were a factor.

I think their model needs more than 12.5% swing...

What % of teams that win the coin flip subsequently win with a TD on the opening drive?

The graphic Wookie posted says 7 of the 10 teams won with a TD on the opening drive.

7 of 10 in the playoffs.

The playoffs have better offensive teams, so the coinflip has a bigger affect than on a regular season game.   The game itself favors the offense.   The TD rule made sense 20 years ago when the league was different.   At the very least they should change it for the playoffs imo (and that of many others based on the news articles showing up today)

I'm saying the heartbreak factor for the Bills' 2021 loss was worse than the Chiefs' 2019 loss.  Based on your response to my post I can't really tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing.  It seems kinda like you just quoted my post and then went off on sort of a tangent.

Question: In the 2020 draft the Packers traded a 4th round pick to trade up in the first round and draft Jordan Love.  If the Packers would have used that first round pick on a WR like Michael Pittman Jr or Tee Higgins and used their 4th round pick on another position of need do you think it's likely they would have reached the Super Bowl at least once in the past two seasons?

Yes, 1%.

The thing to remember is that what Mahomes and the Chiefs did last night is basically unheard of.

Can only find 2 other wins when a team started from inside its 30 with 20 or fewer sec to play, down 1-3 points since '01. And KC's is the only win from down 3.

Brian Burke  (@bburkeESPN) January 24, 2022

The others were Aaron Rodgers 61yd hail mary vs DET in '15, and Fitzpatrick's Dolphins vs LV in '20. In both cases, there was a facemask penalty that helped greatly.

Brian Burke  (@bburkeESPN) January 24, 2022

It's THIRTEEN seconds. That's a Hail Mary situation at best, and that's what everyone expected when the Chiefs got the ball back. We were talking about Tyreek Hill and Mecole Hardman, not Travis Kelce and Harrison Butker.

If someone would have told me "they should move it down the middle of the field and kick it into OT" with that kind of time, distance, and Butker being as shaky as he was last night, I would have laughed the suggestion.

But... "wildly improbable" is not "impossible." The wildly improbable series of events that shouldn't have happened... did happen.

No.

Rodgers is too conservative in the playoffs. He tries too hard to protect the ball.

Probably not.

I don't see a rookie WR having an impact for GB like is expected at other teams. Rodgers is still going to focus on Tae or other receivers he's gained more trust in. And that 4th? Probably a depth piece at best.

I think maybe we're talking about different things.  You're talking about the odds in a general sense.  I'm talking about them in this specific situation.  Give Mahomes 8 seconds instead of 13 seconds and he is forced to find a different way to win than what worked for him last night.  Maybe he'd still win, but I doubt it.

Regardless, the Bills' coaching after the go ahead TD with 13 seconds left was horrible.

This. I can't wrap my head around it

It's not just the playoffs.  That's pretty much Rodgers' whole career.  Heading into this season Rodgers was 0-42 in his career when trailing by more than a point in the 4th quarter against a team with a winning record.

0-42.

How the hell is "the most talented QB in NFL history" 0-42 in that situation? The stat is so absurd it seems fake.

Maybe. But what should it be?

Interestingly, the ESPN model had the Chiefs in the 50% win probability range at the beginning of OT, and they didn't break out the 60% range until a 26 yard pass to Hardman took it from 68% to 90%.

A game winning TD drive is NOT a given. Several other outcomes are possible, and several of those are likely. Turnovers, drive stalling penalties, execution issues, punts, FGs, and missed FGs... there are a lot of things that can and do happen in that situation.

I won't attempt to justify it with math or anything, but based on how that game was going, a 60-70% chance to win at the start of the half seems like a good guess.

The danger in leaning on the OT history is that there are only 11 such games in a 12 year period. That's a pretty small sample size. I think if we had a lot more games, we'd see the winning percentage regress to something more reasonable than 90%. I don't think it would go as low as 53% like the regular season games because we ARE talking about higher quality teams and QBs, but I don't think it would be anywhere near 90%.

So... I don't know.

Ok, here’s my steaming hot take I’m sure half of the thread will dismantle:

Redskins should make Adams the highest paid WR to entice Rodgers to agree to a trade to DC.

If we had a playoff sample size like the regular season then I'm sure it would be lower than it is now, but I still think the coin flip would be very significant.

Playoffs just don't typically trend towards the type of OT game where both teams are failures & seem to be trying to lose. They seem to generally be shoot out style games and that's always going to favor the coin toss winner.

He said first round. GB had pick #30 before the trade. That leaves the door open for Higgins, Pittman, Hamler, Claypool, and Van Jefferson.

With Rogers and the GB offense, there's a chicken vs egg thing going on:



Does he only target those guys because they're the only ones worth a damn, or is there something else going on?

I think if GB takes one of those WRs instead of trading up for Love, it helps a lot. They get much needed WR depth, they maybe get a serviceable D or ST guy in the 4th, and they avoid all the drama and BS that's come since the Love draft pick.

Is that enough to put them over the top and get them to the SB? Maybe.

The #Jaguars have scheduled an in-person interview with #Bucs OC Byron Leftwich for tomorrow, source said. With Tampa Bay out, they can hire him if they so choose.

Ian Rapoport  (@RapSheet) January 24, 2022

Quinn interviewed with the Giants and the Broncos are up next.

Edit: per schefter and the giants on Twitter

Ending of the Bills-Chiefs game couldn't have been any more anticlimactic.

Muh QB winz!

Remember we just watched a weekend of football in which a top shelf QB played an elite game and lost and another QB took 9 sacks for 68 yards lost, threw 0 TDs, 1 INT, and won. The QB might be the most important guy, but there's a whole world of football around him.

As far as Rodgers goes, it's worth remembering that the GB franchise basically never invested in putting WR talent around him. They famously never pursued FAs, and Rodgers has something like 1 TD pass to a WR that was a first round pick at some point.

And then there's defenses...

The average ranking of team’s scoring defense per quarterback. I picked the 8 ~best~ QBs who had played most/all of their career after 2000.

Brady — 6.89
Russell Wilson — 7.33
Big Ben — 8.25
Manning — 14.29
Rodgers — 16.84
Ryan — 16.92
Romo — 18.67
Brees — 19.05

— CJ Vogel (@CJVogel_TFB) January 18, 2021

Percentage of years played where QB had a defense in the top 10:

Brady — 78.9% (15/19)
Russell — 66.7% (6/9)
Big Ben — 62.5% (10/16)
Manning — 41.1% (7/17)
Ryan — 23.1% (3/13)
Brees — 21.0% (4/19)
Romo — 11.1% (1/9)
Rodgers — 7.7% (1/13)

— CJ Vogel (@CJVogel_TFB) January 18, 2021

Years having defenses ranked 20th or worse:

Romo — 55.5%
Rodgers — 46.1%
Brees — 42.1%
Ryan — 38.4%
Manning — 17.6%
Big Ben — 6.3%
Wilson — 0.0%
Brady — 0.0%

— CJ Vogel (@CJVogel_TFB) January 18, 2021

When you have a full career where your team only has a good defense in one year, that's going to leave a mark. And if your defense is ass, there's a good chance a .500+ team can preserve a lead one way or another.

I wouldn't say Rodgers is in the clear. He certainly has some individual responsibility for that record, but it's not like he was dealt a good hand.

There is, IMO, no supporting cast or defensive excuse to explain away “the most talented QB in NFL history” being 0-42 in his career when trailing by more than a point in the 4th quarter against a team with a winning record.

I mean, seriously?  He couldn’t pull it off ONCE in 42 tries?

#Packers HC Matt LaFleur: "There's no plan for a rebuild."

Says there's a plan in place to get under the salary cap and get their contributors all back for next season. #Packers are currently projected to be $40M over the cap.

Ari Meirov  (@MySportsUpdate) January 24, 2022

Has there ever been an NFL HC to come out less than 48 hours after being knocked out of the playoffs and publicly admit "yeah, we'll be in a rebuild next season"?

$40 mil over! Can’t afford adams, Rodgers is a HUGE question mark, and I don’t even know who else is up for a new contract or restructure.

I know it’s never ideal to trade a top 3 QB in the league but if there ever was a time…

Well of course the number shouldn't be ZERO. That's stupid.

But the first step in running a comeback drive is stopping the other team and getting the ball back, and when you have a trash can defense, that's hard to do.

The real question is, how many times did Rodgers get the ball back with a chance to take the lead in Q4 without his defense subsequently blowing it again? He didn't get that opportunity 42 times.

Something like 0-26 (random number) would still be pretty bad, but it's not 0-42.

I think the question every potential team has to be asking is "how much does Rodgers have left in the tank?"  

Peyton Manning won the MVP at age 37 and he played great at age 38.  There were no signs of him dropping off.  Then at age 39 he dropped off a fuckin' cliff.  Statistically THE worst QB in the NFL his last season.

You know how old Rodgers turns next season? 39.

I'd be curious to see how many QBs in worst situations (like Stafford in Detroit) were able to pull it off at least once.  Probably with a hell of a lot fewer chances than Rodgers too.

Rodgers started with a stronger arm than Peyton.  IMHO Rodgers is definitely going to another team to answer the "what if" question.  "What if I was on another team, would I have more than one Superbowl?"

Yeah but Rodgers got crystals and essential oils keeping him going

I wonder if Manning’s neck operation had anything to do with his rapid decline. He was shot at the end of the season when he lost to the colts in the play offs. Then that next season he was DONE.

Brady is the exception but maybe Rodgers can follow suit. He seems healthy and strong still.

Or maybe "if McCarthy was still my HC would I have another ring instead of not even making it to the Super Bowl with LaFleur?"

It's possible that Bass was told to pop it up to the 5 but just hit it too square.

The defense was just the garbage it's been for years boiled down to a super extreme 10 seconds.

Play soft and hope the offense makes more mistakes than you do.
The philosophy is literally that the best way to stop the other team from getting 25 yards per play is to give them 15 uncontested.
Put up great numbers against a schedule of crappy QBs and coaches then be helpless against good teams.

Defense has to be much more aggressive to have any chance for a championship.
Frazier leaving would be wonderful but I'm afraid the retarded approach comes direct from Sean.
We could get a new DC who coaches just as cowardly and stupidly.
OTOH I wonder if Frazier could/would coach a more aggressive style if forced to?

Winning a Super Bowl at age 43?  Playing at an MVP level at age 44?

Until technology and medical science gets to the point where players are able to become cyborgs I don't think the NFL is ever going to see that again.

Something my wife mentioned today, that I cannot verify,  is that Bass asked if he should squib it and McDermott's response was kick it normal.  I fully trust bass would have kicked it how he needed to unless it was set for shit. But he's been pretty dead on all season save for blocks and one or two kicks.

I bet if your correlated the QB cap hit to defensive standing you would see roughly the same percentage spreads.

I realize he was talking about picking a WR in the 1st. I'm just saying most teams would pick a WR in the 1st and expect an immediate impact from them in their offense. GB has never operated that way, although they also don't draft WR's in the 1st. Guys like Tae started off way down the depth chart and earned their way up. At the time of that draft GB's WR room was already full of young dudes that had shown flashes of their potential. Guys like MVS with his speed, Lazard with his size/hands, Tonyan was developing a rapport with Rodgers, etc. I mean, they drafted Amari Rodgers this year and other than returning he barely sniffed the field. I realize he was a 3rd round pick and that a 1st round pick is a bigger investment and likely would force them into the line up more, but ultimately I just don't think any rookie WR is going to get more target share than Lazard/MVS/etc. did. Would they be more talented and able to do more with those targets? Possible, but ultimately I lean towards it not making a big enough difference.

I feel like if any rookie WR was going to be an impact player for GB they'd have to be exceptionally talented like DK Metcalf or Justin Jefferson or they'd have to be exceptionally smart. If they're talented they could just use them to run simple routes and rely on them to beat coverage. If they're smart then they'd need to be able to quickly master the playbook and develop enough of a rapport with Rodgers that he could rely on them for the subtle changes he wants and expects out of guys like Tae. Out of that list of dudes that were available, I'm not sure any of them fit into those categories. Don't get me wrong, plenty of them seem like good talented receivers, but they just don't stand out to me like DK or Jefferson.

All that said, I also understand that anything that a potential #1 WR could have done for that team was more than Jordan Love has done in the short term. I just don't know if it would have been enough to change the outcome of each season.

Also, if this is the year that GB moves on from Rodgers (either through Rodgers own decision or GB's) I think it would be smart to pair Love with a potential #1 WR that he can have input on. Burrow & Chase, Tua & Waddle. Love won't get a guy he played with in college, but if you're building a team it could be great for team culture to have those guys tied at the hip and helping each other succeed.

This.

I seriously doubt all 42 of those games were GB having the last possession and failing to get it done. Also, it's weird that we use the by 1 point of more qualifier for game winning drives. A game winning drive is a game winning drive.

Are you suggesting that the Cowboys replace Dak with A-a-ron?  

Yeah, McCarthy surely would have figured it out after those 7-9 and 6-8-1 seasons.

You could cut him some slack for losing Rodgers in 2017, but he also absolutely failed to adapt to the situation. Tomlin lost Ben way earlier in 2019 and still had a .500 record with Rudolph leading the team, what's Mike's excuse? He even had Aaron Jones and refused to use him over Jamaal Williams, and Jones immediately became a star under LaFleur.

Mav, I assume you want Rodgers and Adams back, but do you think that’s possible ? How do you realistically see your team next season?

Random thought as I work my way through the stages of grief.
Can anyone name a team that does not have a toxicity problem or that has a good feeling of comraderie or family?

BTW, how did the MRI turn out on Brady's lip ?

I don't see how GB can manage this roster without losing some major pieces. I think the team is going to look pretty different next season. I said before, this year is likely the last year of GB's SB window.

Letting Rodgers and Adams go probably makes the most sense for the long term. They're both right at that age where you can start to expect a decline, and they're both going to command top dollar to be retained. Plus, you've already invested in Rodgers replacement. If you don't follow through with that the situation is just going to get worse when Love needs an extension. I don't know if GB can franchise tag Adams & then package Rodgers and Adams in a trade, but that might be better long term than figuring out a way to keep them.

In the fan base or the team culture?

Teams culture. Fanbases are... a different thing

Browns or jets?

They should be devoid of hope and have no reason to be toxic.

ETA: a non-toxic team would be the patriots. The rams seem to avoid all of that as well.

I think that would breed toxicity. It certainly wouldn't build comraderie

The Niners. Every star and main contributor on their team albeit Trent Williams, was drafted to that organization and developed within that Shanahan culture.  Jimmy almost gives the game away every week and yet they all back him in the locker room as their leader.  Their comraderie is the reason they have gotten as far as they have, they play for each other.

The above scenario is very, very similar to that AFCCG vs. the Patriots three years ago. The Pats went up late in the fourth quarter with just over three minutes left. Most people were thinking, "huh, that might do it." NOPE. The Chiefs go right down the field and score a TD at the two minute warning. Most people were thinking, "huh, that might do it." NOPE.

Then the Patriots march across the field and score yet another TD with just 39 seconds left. At this point, people are really thinking, "huh, that might do it." NOOOOOPE.

KC marches up the field and kicks a FG to tie it and send it to OT, where New England gets the coin toss and wins the game by scoring a TD on their first and only possession.

Both of these games are incredibly similar, but as much as I thought three years ago that 39 seconds would do it, last night I really, really, really thought 13 seconds would.

NOPE.

Unbelievable effort by the Chiefs to score with only 13 seconds on the clock...aided by piss poor decisions by the Buffalo coaching staff and lousy coverage with their defense.

packaging Rodgers AND Adams would be interesting. would take a lot of handshakes and behind the scenes understanding, but I doubt any team could afford to make that deal.