So it’s really just the Steelers [or Bills] right?

[RunKC]

I mean goddamn this conference seems wrapped up doesn’t it? Not trying to jinx us but it really seems like injuries are our biggest opponent at this point.

The Ravens are ****ing frauds. They’re a warm up for us. We literally made these guys look like the JV squad the last 2 meetings.

And sure the Bills and Titans may make us work for the win, but in all honesty we have to play pretty goddamn shitty to lose to those guys.

In order to have any shot at beating us you need 3 things:

1. Elite pass rush
2. Top 10 QB capable of making critical plays
3. Overall talented roster

Steelers are the only team in the AFC that has those 3 things, and even them it’s not like they’re some serious threat like the Patriots a couple years back, but they seem like the best of the rest.

I think at this point it would be disappointing for this team to not get to the SB 3 straight times.

We’re just that good, and we keep drafting well and get better and better.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

IMO, it's not useless and it's part of a bigger picture.... it's like one lab result/measure of health.... it's not a number you would put all of your focus on, but it's at least part of the bigger picture.

The Chiefs, for example... I'd expect them to be around +200 and they're at +128. It's not necessarily a terrible thing.... could just mean they've played a lot of playoff teams, it could mean they didn't blow out a team or two that would have really helped their point differential (so what), etc.

For the Browns being 10-5, they should maybe be in the ~+100-125 range and they're -13. And the only other teams in the league with negative point differentials all have losing records. Their largest margin of victory is 14 (NYG & WFT)... beat the Jaguars by 2, Texans by 3, Bengals by 3, Cowboys by 11, Bengals by 5. They also didn't even bother showing up in Pittsburgh, got swept by the Ravens, and lost to the Jets and Raiders.

My conclusion would be they're closer to an 8-8 team that benefited by sweeping the NFCE. Good enough to sneak up on a team every once in a while (Colts, Titans), but also inconsistent (@Pitt, @Ravens, @NYJ).

There's a reason that division has three 10+ win teams, and that reason is the NFCE.

Exactly.

[mkp785]

Originally Posted by MahomesMagic

Yeah, give me a team with no elite edge rushers for our first game.

Buffalo would be perfect to get our OL back and ready.

I am soooo sick of hearing about them. As 28+ year Chief fan I get the pain their fans have gone through but...come on. Did no one watch the game earlier this season when we smacked them around-in Buffalo no less? They also have no running game to be worried about in addition to their lack of a pass rush.

NFL Network was just talking about Josh Allen for MVP?!?! Like he can sniff Mahomes's jock on his best day. Please, I'm more worried about Diggs. Shut him down and watch what happens to them.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

IMO, it's not useless and it's part of a bigger picture.... it's like one lab result/measure of health.... it's not a number you would put all of your focus on, but it's at least part of the bigger picture.

The Chiefs, for example... I'd expect them to be around +200 and they're at +128. It's not necessarily a terrible thing.... could just mean they've played a lot of playoff teams, it could mean they didn't blow out a team or two that would have really helped their point differential (so what), etc.

For the Browns being 10-5, they should maybe be in the ~+100-125 range and they're -13. And the only other teams in the league with negative point differentials all have losing records. Their largest margin of victory is 14 (NYG & WFT)... beat the Jaguars by 2, Texans by 3, Bengals by 3, Cowboys by 11, Bengals by 5. They also didn't even bother showing up in Pittsburgh, got swept by the Ravens, and lost to the Jets and Raiders.

My conclusion would be they're closer to an 8-8 team that benefited by sweeping the NFCE. Good enough to sneak up on a team every once in a while (Colts, Titans), but also inconsistent (@Pitt, @Ravens, @NYJ).

There's a reason that division has three 10+ win teams, and that reason is the NFCE.

Here's my point:

"Point diff" doesn't account for if and how a team improves/deteriorates over the season, or how/when that happens.

Again, using the Chiefs as the example: if you look at the Chiefs 2019 defensively over the whole season, we were one of the worst defenses in the league, and just about the worst run defense by week 17.

But the reality was that the defense wasm only really bad against the run through the first 8 weeks or so, and okay against the pass, until about week 11, with a few games after about week 5 (DEN) where they kind of had peaks and valleys, right? It wasn't until week 11 that they kind of settled in and became a consistently good unit both against the pass and the run.

But how many trolls came in here week after week and through the playoffs telling us just how their team was going to run roughshod over our defense? And how many times did it actually happen in the playoffs? Oh yeah, the answer turned out to be 'none.' In fact, our "31st ranked run defense" stoned both the best running attack (TEN) in the league, as well as the "2nd-best running attack in the league (SFO)," in back-to-back games to win a SB. Did those two teams just shit the bed against a truly bad run defense, or did our defense evolve into a pretty good run defense?

So while PD might tell some overarching general story about a team's scoring, it doesn't say much about how/when/improvement/deterioration/etc. trends over the season. it just says what they did in sum. How useful that is I guess depends on how closely you want to look at a team, and how much you care about whether they are trending one way or another.

[Bearcat]

Looking at every team in the AFCN... if the NFCE was close to being normal, I'd say the Steelers' record stays the same, the Ravens maybe lose one more to be closer to a 9 or 10 win team, the Browns lose two more to be closer to 8-8, and the poor Bengals would still go 0-3-1 or get completely swept.

Same for the NFCW, where the Seahawks would stay the same, the Rams would probably lose one more and be closer to an 8-9 win team, the Cards lose at least one if not two more to be closer to a 7-8 win team, and the poor 49ers still go 1-3 or get swept.

It's just that terrible of a division, with the top 3 teams of the AFCN and NFCW going a combined 22-2. Wonder if that's ever happened before.

[tk13]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

IMO, it's not useless and it's part of a bigger picture.... it's like one lab result/measure of health.... it's not a number you would put all of your focus on, but it's at least part of the bigger picture.

The Chiefs, for example... I'd expect them to be around +200 and they're at +128. It's not necessarily a terrible thing.... could just mean they've played a lot of playoff teams, it could mean they didn't blow out a team or two that would have really helped their point differential (so what), etc.

For the Browns being 10-5, they should maybe be in the ~+100-125 range and they're -13. And the only other teams in the league with negative point differentials all have losing records. Their largest margin of victory is 14 (NYG & WFT)... beat the Jaguars by 2, Texans by 3, Bengals by 3, Cowboys by 11, Bengals by 5. They also didn't even bother showing up in Pittsburgh, got swept by the Ravens, and lost to the Jets and Raiders.

My conclusion would be they're closer to an 8-8 team that benefited by sweeping the NFCE. Good enough to sneak up on a team every once in a while (Colts, Titans), but also inconsistent (@Pitt, @Ravens, @NYJ).

There's a reason that division has three 10+ win teams, and that reason is the NFCE.

This is probably on the money, and also why I'm the weird holdout that's okay with division champs hosting the 1st round playoff games, even if they have losing records.

I don't think it'll be a problem this year, but it's totally not fair for someone to get an AFC home game after getting four gimmes against the NFC East while the other teams are all out here taking on the Saints and Bucs or Seahawks and Rams. You want a home game, beat your division rivals.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

Here's my point:

"Point diff" doesn't account for if and how a team improves/deteriorates over the season, or how/when that happens.

Again, using the Chiefs as the example: if you look at the Chiefs 2019 defensively over the whole season, we were one of the worst defenses in the league, and just about the worst run defense by week 17.

But the reality was that the defense wasm only really bad against the run through the first 8 weeks or so, and okay against the pass, until about week 11, with a few games after about week 5 (DEN) where they kind of had peaks and valleys, right? It wasn't until week 11 that they kind of settled in and became a consistently good unit both against the pass and the run.

But how many trolls came in here week after week and through the playoffs telling us just how their team was going to run roughshod over our defense? And how many times did it actually happen in the playoffs? Oh yeah, the answer turned out to be 'none.' In fact, our "31st ranked run defense" stoned both the best running attack (TEN) in the league, as well as the "2nd-best running attack in the league (SFO)," in back-to-back games to win a SB. Did those two teams just shit the bed against a truly bad run defense, or did our defense evolve into a pretty good run defense?

So while PD might tell some overarching general story about a team's scoring, it doesn't say much about how/when/improvement/deterioration/etc. trends over the season. it just says what they did in sum. How useful that is I guess depends on how closely you want to look at a team, and how much you care about whether they are trending one way or another.

Sure, like I said, it's just one number to help paint a picture.

It's definitely a summary kind of stat... I mean, I could say the Chiefs were +32 before their week 12 bye last season and +91 after, which proves your point to a large extent... and that the Browns are only +2 in the past 5 games... but, it's not a good number to nitpick down to a few games, because then it's also a matter of the number of playoff teams in those stretches and all of those other variables.

The Saints are the perfect example this season... they're at +119, which might be a bit low, but they were +9 the first half of the season with 2 losses and they're +120 in the second half with 2 losses.

That said, I'd say it's a pretty decent indicator whenever a playoff team has a negative point differential, because for a 10+ win team, you're far below the expected value.

So, say the Browns should be in the +100 to +130 range... that's +6.25 to +8.125 per game. They were at a -31 in the first half of the season. If they were an 'average' 10-11 win team, they should be around +50 to +65 just in the 2nd half.... and they're +19 with a game remaining.

And not to nitpick a stat that I said isn't a good one to nitpick, but just showing why the negative number overall is a bad indicator for them.... -31 is obviously a bad start to the first half of the season, but their expected output for a 10-11 win team would still get them into the +19-34 range overall, and they're still shy of that by at least 32 points.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find a team that dug themselves such a hole in point differential to end up with a negative number, that also had success in the playoffs. I could imagine scenarios like that, where a team really doesn't have their shit together early on, but I'd think it's more the exception.

[KChiefs1]

Originally Posted by RunKC

Let me know when you guys see it

Chiefs are playing the game on a different setting.

— NFL passing leader - Mahomes
— NFL receiving leader - Kelce
— No. 2 in TDs - Cheetah
— No. 3 in INT - Honey Badger
— 23-1 in their last 24 games
— Locked up AFC’s first-round bye

Repeat coming? �� @brgridiron pic.twitter.com/lcQRsGHnzg

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) December 28, 2020

Derrick Henry plays QB too?

[Hailchief]

Well that must be 15 standing up on top of that mountain -

[Megatron96]

So, just for the sake of clarity, CLE had WR1, WR2, WR3, AND WR4 on the COVID list for the game. Plus a few other players.

In other words, that wasn't the actual Browns that played yesterday.

That would be kind of like the Chiefs going into a game without Hill, Watkins, Kelce, and Hardman.

Sure, it would still be Pat, but that wouldn't look like KC's offense.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

So, just for the sake of clarity, CLE had WR1, WR2, WR3, AND WR4 on the COVID list for the game. Plus a few other players.

In other words, that wasn't the actual Browns that played yesterday.

That would be kind of like the Chiefs going into a game without Hill, Watkins, Kelce, and Hardman.

Sure, it would still be Pat, but that wouldn't look like KC's offense.

But but the Browns are the best running team n the NFL. Chubb and Hunt both played. Yet their running game got completely stuffed by the Jets.

What’s it going to take for you to give this up? They’re still the Browns.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

But but the Browns are the best running team n the NFL. Chubb and Hunt both played. Yet their running game got completely stuffed by the Jets.

What’s it going to take for you to give this up? They’re still the Browns.

They didn't get stuffed. They literally didn't run the ball. At least not in the first half. They tried to throw it for the first 30 minutes. Without their starting WRs.

It would be one thing if they ran 20 times in the first half and got stuffed, as you seem to think happened. But they ran like 7 times in the first half. And threw it like 20 times. To a bunch of guys that never started a game?

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

So, just for the sake of clarity, CLE had WR1, WR2, WR3, AND WR4 on the COVID list for the game. Plus a few other players.

In other words, that wasn't the actual Browns that played yesterday.

That would be kind of like the Chiefs going into a game without Hill, Watkins, Kelce, and Hardman.

Sure, it would still be Pat, but that wouldn't look like KC's offense.

No it was the same old Browns that showed up. Screw excuses

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

They didn't get stuffed. They literally didn't run the ball. At least not in the first half. They tried to throw it for the first 30 minutes. Without their starting WRs.

It would be one thing if they ran 20 times in the first half and got stuffed, as you seem to think happened. But they ran like 7 times in the first half. And threw it like 20 times. To a bunch of guys that never started a game?

Same...old....Browns. Not sure why that's difficult to understand. Teams with that bad of point differential are not a threat...at all

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by Hailchief

Well that must be 15 standing up on top of that mountain -

El Capitan

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

They didn't get stuffed. They literally didn't run the ball. At least not in the first half. They tried to throw it for the first 30 minutes. Without their starting WRs.

It would be one thing if they ran 20 times in the first half and got stuffed, as you seem to think happened. But they ran like 7 times in the first half. And threw it like 20 times. To a bunch of guys that never started a game?

Exactly.

You’re proving my point in case you hadn’t noticed.

All they had to do was play their game. Instead they did the exact opposite, despite having a healthy running game and zero WR’s.

Their coaching staff is BEYOND stupid. They lost to the goddamn Jets trying to be cute.

JFC dude. They didn’t just lose. They got outsmarted by Adam ****ing Gase.