2021 Dynasty/Fantasy Analysis Divisional Playoff: Chiefs 42, Bills 36
When KC took a 26-21 lead with 8:55 left, I thought Buffalo was probably done…needing a TD, but that even if they got that TD -- there would still be plenty of time for KC to get into FG range, at least, to tie it or win it (depending upon the two-point conversion try).
As the Bills embarked on the final drive and the clock hit the two-minute warning with it still 26-21 KC, if you would have told me at that point there would be 31 more points tallied/exchanged – I woulda not been able to comprehend how it would be possible…but it was, it did happen.
Many rushed to proclaim it the best football game of all-time, which isn’t crazy talk…but I’m sitting there thinking – did we just forget the Las Vegas v. LA Chargers season ending game? I mean, I know that was WAY WAY WAY back in time/two weeks ago, but still…my vote was for the LV v. LAC contest and all that entailed. I won’t dispute anyone who favored this game as the best of the 2021 season, however. Recency bias.
The thing with all this past week’s playoff games…they all came down to the last play. We’re going to make massive, sweeping judgements on teams and players and coaches on who won or lost, when they all played to a draw, essentially, but someone had to win. I mean, is Kansas City really that much better than Buffalo? The Bengals are so much better than the Titans? One quirky play, or blocked punt (GB), or penalty could have (or did) change everything. Oh, well. It doesn’t matter…we’ll forget this particular game in about two weeks as well (unless you’re a diehard Bills fan). Buffalo will now be forgotten/feel disappointing for the 2021 season and we’ll think of KC’s 2021 only in terms of what happens next week.
Either team could’ve won this game, but there were two things I saw Buffalo do that let me know/reinforced that coaching in the NFL is completely useless outside of New England…and just one guy (Belichick) at that.
I like Sean McDermott. I think he’s a better than average coach and deserves a lot of credit for shaping/building this personnel group and building it specifically FOR the Buffalo geography. No one wants to willingly live at/move their families to Buffalo – but McDermott actually has created a Buffalo Bills culture there. A watered-down version of what Bill Belichick has done in New England, except McDermott has Josh Allen and Bill doesn’t have anything close…so McDermott will continue to rule the AFC East because of it. But I continue to see McDermott get totally tense/keyed up, a different look on his face/psyched out in these big playoff moments -- and he and his staff made two of the greatest coaching blunders in the history of football, but they’ll likely be forgotten in short order…if they were even fully caught in the first place.
1) The Chiefs sensing the gravity of this war, finally put Tyreek Hill back to return punts in the 4th-quarter of this game. Now, remember…Tyreek Hill is the guy the Bills 9and every NFL team) planned all week to stop and was double teaming all game respecting that he’s the best weapon in all of football. You’d think when you see Tyreek back to return a punt/kick, you’d tell your punter ‘DO NOT kick it to Tyreek’…or you’d hope your punter wasn’t an idiot and not kick it to him on his own thoughts without you having to scream it to him from the sidelines.
So, of course, they punt it right to Tyreek. He returns it for just 10 yards, but there was an odd penalty called on the kicking team…which allowed KC to force Buffalo to punt it again…with Tyreek back there.
Now, maybe I’d forgive the first time they punted it to Tyreek because maybe the punter is too stupid to realize anything and/or you’re trying to shout warnings at him from the sidelines with a packed/loud stadium drowning you out. OK, things happen…I guess. But now they’re being forced to punt it again – AND STILL NO ONE TELLS THE PUNTER TO KICK IT OUT OF BOUNDS or through the end zone or a mile high on the second punt in a row???!!??? WTF is there even coaching for? So, they kick it right to Tyreek again…who goes all Bo Jackson Tecmo Bowl for 45 yards and right into the red zone for the KC offense (which led to a FG).
How stupid do you have to be as a coaching staff not to communicate that to the punter BEFORE THE SECOND PUNT?!?!?!?!?!?
2) With 0:07 seconds left in the game and KC down three and needing to throw a very quick pass to get 10+ yards (at least) to get into FG range the blunder of the year #2 occurred.
Not the soft coverage on the first play with 0:13 left – that was certainly debatable, but it was the second throw/play before the game typing FG. With 0:07 left it HAD to be a quick throw, connect, get down, call a timeout. So, knowing that…what does the Bills defense do? Rushes four guys and puts no one in front of the WRs (or just Tyreek) to bump them/slow them down. They played to not allow a bomb behind them when there was no time for a bomb to happen.
There was NO WAY four pass rushers were going to get to Mahomes with him needing to quick pass. If two of them dropped back to the passing lanes, it would’ve confused Mahomes a bit…it would’ve clogged the easy middle, quick passing lanes. You don’t care if Mahomes gets confused and scrambles a bit, because the clock may have run out if he moved around/didn’t throw it fast. How is Sean McDermott, de facto defensive coordinator and THE head coach…how did he not tell his guys not to worry about pass rushing, and oh by the way also get in front of Tyreek and try and bump him because he’s the fastest guy down the field?
Nope, the Bills just do a traditional prevent defense…and one of the pass rushers is so tired they take two steps and just stopped and looked at the play…I noticed it live because I thought he was going over to bump Tyreek. He didn’t. He ran two steps from the outside then stood upright and watched as Mahomes sliced one down the open middle and got into FG range for the tying kick.
What are NFL coaches thinking? What are they even there for? I guess just to play the wrong players and giving dumb press conferences before and after games and making dumb statements to interviewers at halftime. They certainly aren’t thinking the game through apparently…not in Buffalo anyways. Sean McDermott’s lack of strategic awareness cost the city/the team the game – and it should haunt him for years.
One/any particular individual coach could’ve not thought of these things but they have an entire staff of like 400 people on the ground and in the sky…and not one of them piped up with anything? Not even the three sons and four cousins of the head coach plus the guy dating his daughter that are all somehow magically on an NFL coaching staff (I assume here like anywhere else)…la Familia didn’t notice either?
Sean McDermott, you got outcoached again in a big game. But I’m sure you’ll blame a defensive player for some missed assignment or something. If it makes you feel better…
Kansas City is a -7.0 favorite over Cincy, because ‘recency bias’ (of this great watch/game) and because the public LOVES the Chiefs and still think of the Bengals as lesser than the Browns among Ohio teams. I’ll take that +7.0. Not heavy, but I’ll take it.
Fantasy Player Notes…
-- Tyreek Hill (11-150-1/13) made the victory possible. From the timely, stellar punt return to the short catch and run past everyone long TD…Patrick Mahomes is great an all, but this one is all on the magic of Tyreek Hill.
Josh Allen (27-37 for 329 yards, 4 TDs/0 INT, 11-68-0) was the more impressive of the two QBs here. Allen outplayed Mahomes, but both were great. When Mahomes faced Joe Burrow a few weeks ago in a playoff-like game, Burrow was the better QB by far.
I’m just sayin’…
Patrick Mahomes won’t be our #1 rated overall Dynasty asset for 2022, I suspect…when that top 600 debuts the week after the Super Bowl.
And just for a final note here – why couldn’t we get this Mahomes + Hill late in the 2021 season? All my teams with the MYreek combo plan…they mostly got beat out in the FF playoffs. It wouldn’t have happened if we had THIS result.
Timing is everything…
-- No Fantasy player raised his 2022 valuations in the entire playoffs more than Gabriel Davis (8-201-4/10) did in this one game. He pulled a Costanza…left on high note. No more games for him, so now this stat line/game is what everyone will remember until August.
His prior three games, Davis averaged 2.8 catches on (6.7 targets)…a 41.8% catch rate for 40.0 yards and 0.33 TDs per game. He’s had 50 or fewer yards in a game in seven of his last 9 games…but all that won’t matter, only this game will be remembered.
I think it’s very likely the Bills draft and/or sign a higher-end #2 WR for Josh Allen and Gabe Davis ends up a floater/swing #3-4 WR in 2022, but we’ll see. If you ended the season with him on your Dynasty team…one of my first orders of business would be taking him out onto the trade market.
I don’t mean to rain on his parade, but…we’ve got a job to do.
Recency bias rules!
-- So, Clyde Edwards-Helaire (7-62-0, 1-9-0/2) is back…and yet we see Jerick McKinnon (10-24-0, 5-54-0/7) in the game more in key spots here.
Was it rust as the reason why CEH was held back?
Are you kidding me?
When teams are in the biggest moments (like the playoffs) and they can get a key player back active – they’re using them. There’s no adjustment period. This wasn’t CEH still hurt but trying to contribute…he was fine. This was a choice by KC management/coaching…they said: We trust Jerick more than Clyde, right now.
CEH logged 23 snaps in this OT affair.
McKinnon 53 snaps.
Wow.
That’s like if the Titans brought back Derrick Henry for the game vs. CIN, and D’Onta Foreman out-snapped and out-touched Henry. It’s another slap in the face for CEH.
What does this mean for CEH’s value in 2022 and beyond? We’ll be examining that case study this offseason in our Dynasty Offseason/Best Ball (DOBB) area.
-- Devin Singletary (10-26-1, 4-25-0/5) scored his 9th TD in his last six games. Think about that… If (example) Miles Sanders had that kind of run, he’d be a white hot RB1 going into 2022…the FF owners/fans would go nuts. Hell, if Clyde Edwards-Helaire went on that kind of run…he’d for sure be an RB1 in 2022 preseason. But Singletary does it and *crickets*.
That’s the power of the mind control over our football thinking by the football media – the vaunted mass formation psychosis is never more real than in football thought.
Why else would every NFL Draft Mock Draft look pretty much the same as we move through the process? Why would every single football man, woman, and child buy into repeating that Trevor Lawrence is a ‘generational talent’ despite the fact that 99.9% of people saying it are not scouting football/have no idea why they are echoing it…except it’s the accepted mantra from the mind numbed media klatch. The public/the masses say football things because their overlords in the media say things, and we worship football media people because they work in football so they must be special. The joke is…they (the media) know less about football than the average Dynasty/Fantasy player.
Scouts and coaches all agreed Trevor was generational, so they’re complicit too…just like their generational Jameis Winston…or Sam Darnold.
Any whooo, you’d think the Bills (despite the media) might run with this Singletary uprising in 2022…but they probably won’t. They haven’t for two years. They seek the mysterious, soul-soothing power running back to be their lead or split with Singletary.
Zack Moss wasn’t the answer.
And, yes…they wanted Travis Etienne in the 2021 NFL Draft.
Neither of the above two things make you feel good about Singletary’s standing as some RB1 threat in 2022. Let me see what the Bills do in free agency (D’Onta Foreman) or in the NFL Draft, and then we can debate Singletary’s 2022 FF value. I think they will NOT give into him as the heavy lead, but I hope for his sake they do.
FYI, Clyde Edwards-Helaire has 9 rushing TDs in his entire NFL career (including playoffs). Singletary has 9 rushing TDs in his last 11 games this season. And yet, we’ll see CEH as the big ‘sleeper’ for 2022 and an RB1 threat…we won’t see Singletary anywhere close to that.
CEH has played two seasons in the NFL (2020-2021) and Singletary has more rushing yards, catches, and TDs than CEH in that two-year span. Yes, CEH has missed games, but isn’t that part of the issue? Yet, we all see ‘hope’ in CEH…but Singletary is boring. Why do we think that? Where do these thoughts come from? Draft stock is a form of mass formation psychosis – why they must be great players if they were drafted in the 1st-round. OK, sure thing…
This was the Singletary (his last 6 or so games) that I was trying to get into ahead of the 2020 season. Eventually, I’m always right…sometimes I’m just 2-7 years early on the call.
FF Notes for KC this week vs. CIN
-- I think KC showed their hand this game…it’s a McKinnon/CEH split at RB. The crafty DFS thing to do would be a flyer on CEH next game hoping he’ll get more run or a hot hand week…but it’s certainly no guarantee.
-- I think this matchup w CIN leans more ‘shootout’, as I think Cincy feels like they can hang/are better than KC on offense…so, buckle up. Plus, these teams will be ‘going for it’ on 4th downs, etc.
-- What else is there to say about the KC offense…it's Mahomes-Tyreek-Kelce, and maybe this is a week they go off…or maybe not. It’s been more random this year. However, Byron Pringle now has 5 TDs in his last five games and is averaging 4.8 catches per game in that span. Pringle has become that #2 WR…out of ‘no other choice’ on this roster.
In other news, Josh Gordon was cut Monday (and put on the practice squad).
Snap Counts of Interest:
53 = McKinnon
23 = CEH
64 = Singletary
00 = Moss, Breida
54 = Diggs
53 = Gabe Davis
30 = Beasley
17 = Emm Sanders
16 = McKenzie
