outlaw4

Mahomes doing Mahomes things in the playoffs. What's new?

This game so far has not been a major surprise. The Chiefs have allowed just about every opponent they've faced this season to stay right with them, only to find a way to win at the end. That's the thing the Texans will need to overcome.

There's a reason why so many great receivers have come in mid/late rounds. Scouts and fans will overvalue raw metrics and potential while another guy who actually does the little things right get overlooked because their 40 time doesn't stand out. I'm hoping the success so far we've had with Coker will get our team to look for more guys like him going forward rather than guys like TMJ/Mingo.

Texans really love running slants.

Coker is an example on how really knowing how to play the position can compensate for not having gifted athleticism. That said, I still can't comprehend how he broke away on that long touchdown. Could just be an extra gear he only has going on a straight line.

Personally, I think Goff has one of the easier jobs compared to other QBs. His guys get schemed to where they're no one within tackling range and better yet, those receivers get ton of YAC as well. You still give credit to Goff for doing his job, but that's more of an example of a staff that is making everything as easy as possible for their QB. With our staff, you have to give them props for working with Bryce after the benching. I do think, however, that the massive turnaround in performance took even the staff by surprise to where the bigger issue now is that we're not really ready to exploit his emerging skillset yet. It's going away from fixing him to more using him properly.

From a personality standpoint, Young and Canales seem to be a good pairing. There aren't too many coaches who could bench a guy and yet keep that guy's trust in you. Absolutely they're nowhere close to Mahomes/Reid, but in the Atlanta game, some of Canales's playcalls were about as bold as his QB was. A good sign Canales himself is gaining the confidence to call what he wants without worrying too much whether his players could execute.

Not sure if this says more about how good the support Bryce had around him this season or how terrible it was his rookie season. I'm still inclined to say it's more the latter. Is there's anything Bryce learned his rookie season that was an aid to his development? If anything, just about everything that his prior coaches and on-the-field experience taught him had to be wiped clean.

I do think someone out there will give him another chance, but he and his agent need to be real and not ask for a ton of money, so he can go to a much better team. Only way to silence his critics is to prove them wrong, but he won't be doing it playing for the Raiders or Browns. It's what happens when you have too many teams in the playoffs and you have a year where there's a big disparity between the good and bad teams.

This is hilarious. At one point, Darnold held the ball so long that Paul Allen, the Vikings radio guy, was yelling at him.

It's getting to the point where a Steelers receiver should be on no one's target list. You're just asking for trouble.

A lot of jokes have been made when this team was saying Bryce was going to be like a point guard... but that Falcons game did give a vibe of a QB scoring 40+ points while spreading the ball around quite a bit. I'll give you that this was under a best case scenario, but I feel how we executed that game may be a proof of concept on how we should move forward. If anyone recalls when we had DJ Moore and Curtis Samuel, neither were true #1s but if we could get that level of targets now with Bryce instead of Teddy as QB, that could really get interesting. Problem is that the closest comparable pairing on our roster is Thielen/Coker and one's going to call it quits sooner or later, and neither are as dynamic. It is possible XL/Sanders will look lot better next season while Coker can effectively take over Thielen's role. But that's still not good enough. I'm inclined to agree that the big FA WRs will want #1 money even though they're not even #1's on their current team, plus how the Diontae experiment went belly up makes me more assured we're going to be more negative on divas WRs. So there's fanbase fantasy and what the team is likely to do. I'll give you my prediction as of now: 1. Bank on XL/Coker/Sanders getting better next season after getting tons of reps as rookies. I think Brooks was meant to be part of the equation as the back who is more involved with screens and swing passes but that got derailed. 2. FA Receivers: Honestly, the most realistic option... Darius Slayton. Probably similar or a little more expensive than Thielen. Reliable his entite career and rarely injured. Has speed. Excellent locker room guy. Could be a good #2. 3. Use mid/late draft picks on a receiver/pass catching back/tight end. Emphasis on actually knowing how to play the position. There's far too many success stories of other teams finding stars in later rounds. We need to at least try to hit one.

You mean the real Sam Darnold took a seat... involuntarily... the same amount as the number of points his team scored.

Come back, McCarthy! Come back!

I mean, we still didn't give them enough to work with. Then again, I saw them mostly as bridges to the next guy. We simply decided to keep blowing up all our bridges.

If there's one tiny solace for Darnold, Vikings fans are already used to their team letting them down in the playoffs even when they have a great season. Remember, they were 13-4 a few seasons ago and they lost to Daniel Jones of all guys.

When you need a guy Who gets spooked by ghosts Who do you call? SAM DARNOLD

So, which Sam Darnold are we getting today? I'm going to guess the bad one.

Probably deserves its own thread but if Bryce is starting to become the QB we expected him to be, then we need to draft receivers that works best for him. And since he gelled with Thielen from the start, that's telling me Bryce mainly needs guys who actually know how to play the fundamentals of the position. Run the right route. Catch a well placed ball. It's probably why Bryce and XL aren't meshing yet while he has done better with Coker; XL came in much more raw and inexperienced. Best comparison would be Brady for all the seasons he didn't have superstar receivers. His targets were simply intelligent and reliable players.

If anything, we need even more draft capital to get some more building blocks for this team rather than gifting them away for failed projects that eat up our cap. And considering how awful our defense was and that you kinda that need for an actual playoff run, this is where our most valuable resources should go. As for weapons, part of me feels that this is where Canales needs to show his worth as an offensively minded coach and get our current pieces - XL/Coker/Sanders - to do a lot more in year two. That and make improvements as a play designer and caller. And honestly, I'm not as high on this year's batch of free agent WRs as others. They're overhyped, old, and/or are injury prone enough that we can't rely on them. There are one or two names I would consider but they're more to replace Thielen as the veteran of the group. Otherwise, use a mid/late round pick on a receiver because there's too many examples of those guys becoming major contributors.

Finally, we got our first good playoff game and it was with the Bucs losing. Excellent.

So the game could come down to a former Panthers kicker. Interesting.

I always get envy watching non-Panthers receivers getting separation.

Baker Mayfumble