Sorry, I misspoke. I should not have said that Kelce didn't elevate his game in the postseason before Mahomes; I should have said the stats don't bear that out.

Giving you the prorated yardage for missing an entire half of the Titans game, there is still a pretty significant discrepancy in TDs. You're talking about 1 TD scored in four playoff games pre-Mahomes compared to 11 TDs scored in eleven contests with Mahomes. And that matches a 1-3 record with Alex that shifted to 8-3 with Mahomes.

It's still more about opportunity. I don't think there's an appreciable difference between Kelce circa 2016 and Kelce circa 2019, he just got more opportunities to shine.

How often did Marino have the defenses that Brady had? Not trying to say Brady isn’t good or a HOF, but how many SBs does he win without top 10 defenses (I can name 4 without even trying)?

Gonzo was, perhaps ironically, the best imaginable fit for some of his worst QBs. He's not unlike Bowe/Cassel in that regard.

TG would've been a nice fit for Smith but remember, if Smith didn't see a pretty good window, he'd tuck and run. In some ways you need a kinda shitty/stupid QB to take full advantage of what TG did, which was just muscle the ball away from guys.

Or in the alternative, a guy who simply didn't miss a window over the middle. Wanna talk about 'what if' scenarios - don't give me TG/Mahomes - give me TG/Brady. As good as Brady/Gronk were, Brady/Gonzalez would've been better. Brady's placement on that seam shot and his ability to make the right read and fire on time would've been PERFECT for Gonzalez's style of play.

Trying to boil down a 4 game sample size to touchdowns/gm is a pretty wonky way to go about it. Especially when, again, his TD rate wouldn't be THAT far off his regular season rates under Smith. 22 touchdowns in 63 games under Smith is 1 score every 2.8 games vs. 1 score in 3.5 games in the post-season. And again, that score came in the half against the Titans where he was going to EAT as that game went along. There was every reason to believe he'd have put up another in the 2nd half and now that stat gets flipped on its head as well.

The sample size is just awfully small here and when you see that he actually increased his yards/gm (again, providing that you're pro-rating) I just have a hard time saying that he wasn't elevating his game in the post-season even before Mahomes got on the scene.

He's just always been a big game player and that was BEFORE Mahomes got here. Now what Mahomes did was turn him up to 11, but he was at 10 before PM was his triggerman.

Is there a way to find splits by QB?

Now I'm curious - because I kinda feel like Tony was probably at his best with some turtling chickinshit like Damon Huard under center.

"Oh shit, this game is going so fast! Who'sopenwho'sopenwho'sopen....AAAAAAAGHHHH!!!"

{slings it in TG's general direction and prays}

It is a small sample size and I think that strengthens my argument.

I had been arguing with chiefzilla, among others, about opportunity in the NFL. I believe Kelce is a good example, and the small sample size bears it out (is it bears it out or bares it out?). Kelce circa 2015, 2016 vs Kelce circa 2019, 2020. I don't believe there was an appreciable difference. The major difference between them is opportunity.

2015 Kelce was saddled with a gaping vagina QB who refused to let his nuts hang. We played not to lose and it resulted in losses against the big dawgs in the postseason.

Then, in comes our chocolatey-dicked biracial angel and BAM. All of a sudden we're winning 3/4ths of the postseason games we play, which creates more opportunities for Kelce, who hasn't changed a ton, to shine.

I don't either.

That's precisely my point - I think he was an ass-kicker in the post-season BEFORE Patrick Mahomes came along. He'd developed into a horse even with Alex Smith under center. He hadn't risen to national prominence yet because we were always that team that showed up to be the bit players in someone else's story.

But he never failed to do his part. He never failed to raise his level of play.

I think that's a lot harder argument to make in re: Tony Gonzalez. You can attempt to say that he didn't get the number of opportunities - sure. But you can't say he met/exceeded his ordinary standard when he DID get his shot.

What is interesting about Kelce is I bet you could go back in the archives and find people wanting him gone because of his attitude and his bone headed plays. Maybe I will do a search and hope that I wasn't one of them :D

I agree. Mahomes doesn’t use the jump ball as much as other qbs do. I could see Alex using that quite a bit as a checkdown option. Chucking it up where only he can get is safer than threading a tight needle. Same reason I don’t think gonzo could improvise the way kelce does. I’d imagine kelce would be especially lethal for a lot of these fast break offenses out there especially with how exceptional he is when playing out of structure. And I would agree he’s way more suitable for YAC although gonzalez was an absolute truck to tackle.

Either TE would have excelled with either qb but at the least we can celebrate that the right TE came at the right time for the right QB.

I think these are the kinds of arguments that lead to guys like Justin Herbert and matthew Stafford getting overhyped. I would absolutely take Montana and Brady over marino. I know they had way better talent to work with but having wxceptional ability and stats doesn’t always translate into wins. I think marino falls into the rivers and Herbert category of exceptionally talented qbs who just can’t seem to win when it counts. There is no guarantee that Marino wins big games with a better supporting cast.

Marino was saddled with a couple truly atrocious defenses, iirc. At least one for sure for at least 3-4 years. He was doing the Manning thing before Payton did it. Trying to score piles upon piles of points because his defense couldn't stuff a runny nose. Also trying to extend drives just to keep his own defense off the field.

And in those days, everyone ran the piss out of the ball compared to how the league runs today, so MIA's defense was getting gangraped on the ground much more so than through the air.

Tangent: the way the rules are enforced these days in the passing game, there's really no such thing as a shutdown CB, much less a shutdown secondary. The rules are just too slanted in the favor of the offense. Heck, Wilson practically earned himself that first extension just by throwing those high-arching passes that drew flag after flag because the refs were going to call any contact by the DB vs. the WR. That's why Russ would have stat lines after a lot of games where he threw for <200 yds (maaaybe), but the team would score 30+ points or whatever. He was adept at chucking 50/50 balls to the EZ, forcing the DB to commit DPI, and boom, SEA gets a free 1st down on the 2.

So, we can forget the idea of ever having a shutdown secondary. We really want smart, sticky, and well-coached. make it as difficult as possible to get chunk plays and take away the run. But stopping a modern passing attack is the myth in 2022 and beyond. Check the league's best secondaries; no one is shutting down anyone these days, unless either the QB and/or the OC are just flat incompetent.

Something funny I just noticed whilst watching the crazy Patrick to CEH play. You'll notice Kelce sort of start walking away the opposite direction before Patrick has even thrown the ball.

What do you think is going on here? Did he think Patty was sacked? I can't quite figure it out.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="tl" dir="ltr">MAHOMES MAGIC 😱<br><br>(via <a href="https://twitter.com/Chiefs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Chiefs</a>)<a href="https://t.co/rui7JHSa0s">pic.twitter.com/rui7JHSa0s</a></p>&mdash; SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) <a href="https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1576741403559763970?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I loved Kelces boneheaded plays, because he stated what we all felt as Chief fans!

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Travis Kelce turns 33 in a couple hours. Through four weeks, he has 61 more receiving yards than any other tight end. He&#39;s tied for first among TEs with 26 catches. He&#39;s still the highest-graded TE in football, per <a href="https://twitter.com/PFF?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PFF</a>. He leads <a href="https://twitter.com/fboutsiders?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@fboutsiders</a> DYAR and Effective Yards by a mile.</p>&mdash; Sam McDowell (@SamMcDowell11) <a href="https://twitter.com/SamMcDowell11/status/1577492161108516866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Travis Kelce turns 33 in a couple hours. Through four weeks, he has 61 more receiving yards than any other tight end. He&#39;s tied for first among TEs with 26 catches. He&#39;s still the highest-graded TE in football, per <a href="https://twitter.com/PFF?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PFF</a>. He leads <a href="https://twitter.com/fboutsiders?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@fboutsiders</a> DYAR and Effective Yards by a mile.</p>&mdash; Sam McDowell (@SamMcDowell11) <a href="https://twitter.com/SamMcDowell11/status/1577492161108516866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>