1 carry in the 3rd

17 straight pass attempts

Taylor dominates a drive on the ground in the 4th

Mack is a healthy scratch

Reich is a POS

There definitely has to be balance. The trouble is in the 2nd half, there was none until that last TD drive.

This is true. There's reason to want us to run more in the second half. But all this "Frank Reich needs to be fired" talk is overkill to say the least.

This is where I can't get on board with a lot of guys here commenting about play-calling or 4th down attempts or whatever. Seems like post-hoc criticism.

We tried to run early, didn't get much. So we started passing. And it's not like we were banging our heads against the wall. The pass was absolutely working against Tampa Bay.

-We scored 21 in the 2nd quarter.

-First drive of second half, all passes, we drive down to the red zone. Shaq Barrett destroying our drive was not because of Frank Reich's play-calling.

-TB touchdown

-Next drive, moving the ball again, two more first downs, TB territory. Wentz throws up a 50/50 ball that Pittman loses to Winfield. Questionable decision, not the play-call.

-TB touchdown

-Third drive, 3rd and 2 becomes 3rd and 17 after consecutive holding and false start penalties. Not on play-calling.

-Finally force TB to punt again... And Hines muffs it at our 19. Not on play- calling.

-TB field goal.

-We get one drive in the second half where we don't kill ourselves with turnovers or penalties, and just like earlier in the game, we move the ball right down the field and score.

------

We were moving the ball today and if not for devastating mistakes by players... It looked to me like we were on our way to dropping another 40-burger this week.

26 passes in a row is not balanced.

Also, Reich hasn't had any issues with continuing to hand the ball off to JT in the 4th quarter of blowout wins when the game's already decided (Buff, Hou). If he's wanting to limit some of JT's carries so he's fresher later in the season why not do it then instead of when games are still undecided?

The problem is that we have 3 games where we've blown a double digit lead and lost, and in all 3 of those losses our best player was vastly underutilized. I'm not on the fire Frank bandwagon, but he really needs to quit inexplicably going away from the run for crazy long stretches at a time.

The run game had early success vs both teams the Bucs are super bowl champs and they were daring us to throw and we were having success, they didn’t stop Doyle all game long that was because of the threat of Taylor

The turnovers lost the game period that drive late in the 4th was a thing of beauty

I agree 100%. No need to fire the guy. Turnovers happened, and they cost us the game, not the play calls.

But we can all the play the woulda, coulda, shoulda card. What if we weren't going absolutely bonkers passing on every down and the DE had to at least maintain some level of edge contain due to the threat of JT instead of doing his best Robert Mathis mad dog impersonation? Would there have been the strip sack?

That's the problem with this guy. Way too many games where you can sit back and say "shoulda kicked the FG, shoulda punted, shoulda run the ball".

Yep, we are just fans and he is making millions coaching at the highest level. But there is a very clear trend of being able to look back at losses with this team, with him calling the shots, where you can do this.

He sucks!

This was a very disappointing loss. To me, while everyone except Taylor should share the blame, I am most disappointed in the OL. How can everyone from fans to talking heads tout this line as being great, when they may be the worst line in football for pass blocking. I can count on one hand the amount of times this entire season I've seen Wentz have all the time in the world to throw a pass. Brady had that on almost every snap. Can anyone explain how this line can be so good on run blocking and so bad on pass blocking?

His plays scored us 31 points. Most times, that gets you the W. Turnovers prevented it from being 45 points or more.

o


(CHARGERS vs. CHIEFS, 12/16)


With 3 seconds left to play in the 1st half, the Chargers went for it on 4th-and-goal from the Chiefs' 1-and-a-half yardline ...... and the pass was batted down, incomplete.

No points for the Chargers on the final play of the first half.

o

o


The Chargers just went for it again on 4th down, by passing a 45-yard field goal attempt ...... and they were again stopped.

No points for the Chargers on their first drive of the second half.

o

Well, that's 6 points now.

o


The Chiefs just returned one of those favors ...... they went for it on 4th down and 1 from the Chargers' 2 yardline, and didn't get it.

Both teams are leaving points on the board wholesale in this game.

o

They were playing madden Lastnight, go for it every time

Which is why NFL coaches dont come from Madden.

Colts v ravens in 06. Dungy had Viniteri kick 5 field goals and won. You Never pass up a scoring opportunity.

The primary reason they won that game was because they held the Ravens to 6 points - not because they kicked field goals. Kick a lot of field goals against a prolific offense and you’ll often lose. Context of the game matters.

For reference 19 teams currently are at 50% or better 4th down conversion rate. Last year 24 teams finished 50% or better. Considering the point differential between a touchdown (with extra point) and a field goal it’s no wonder the analytics often disagree with you.

They gave up. 9 points for 0. Great strategy.

Ahh yes, the hindsight defense. Very popular. More teams should employ it - see what the results are then make your decision. But what if I point out games where the 4th down conversion and scoring TDs instead of FGs were the deciding factor? Would you change your mind? Probably not since the question would be which is more likely to occur. I know! We should analyze how likely each event is to occur and how likely they are to contribute to victory using math and a lot of historical data. We could call it analytics or something!! I think we are on to something. This could be extremely valuable for NFL coaches!! Of course hindsight users will always hate it since hindsight has proven to be a superior analysis tool commonly used by NFL fans.

People also often don't take into consideration the butterfly effect.

If you lose by 2pts... People point to that first quarter field goal miss as the reason you lost.

When really, if you made the field goal, all subsequent series of events would be different. You actually could've lost the game by 14pts had you made the field goal. Or you could've won by 10pts. We don't know.

Its not hindsight.

There are only so many scoring chances. There is a clock. Teams that have more takeaways fewer turnovers have more success than their opponents. When a team turns it over on downs when they were in scoring position, it might as well be a fumble or an interception.

There is a time and place for going for it. SD had several chances to score, and they came away with nothing. KC took the ball with good field position, and scored.

A lot of little things add up to a big thing. There is a time and a place for taking a chance. They failed and gave the ball to a prolific offense, in decent field position. Is the charger defense good enough for that risk?

Apparently not.

o


The Chiefs also gave up 3 points.

I think that the FG-attempt which the Chargers eschewed right before halftime hurt the most ...... heading into the locker room with half an hour to think about it, that complete negation of any kind of points at all was huge for the Chiefs and devastating for the Chargers.

o

I find this a particularly compelling argument when made by a poster calling himself "ChaosTheory".

Dr. Ian Malcolm would approve.

o


Actually, that was 9 points that the Chargers had left on the table at that point.

I didn't start watching the contest until the 2nd quarter ...... the Chargers went for it on 4th down-and-goal from the Chiefs' 5-yardline on the opening drive of the game, and were stopped.

o

o


Excellent citation of the cause-and-effect phenomenon.

The same is true of baseball (and pretty much almost every other sport.) When a base-runner gets caught stealing and the batter then hits a solo home run immediately afterward, many fans will say that he would have hit a 2-run homer if the base-runner had stayed put ...... but if the base-runner had stayed put, the pitcher would have been pitching from the stretch (as opposed to a full windup) and likely would have thrown a different pitch than the one in which produced the home run. And the batter may have been looking for a different pitch than the one in which he homered off of.

So if the runner had stayed at first base, the batter might have hit a 2-run home run ...... or he might have hit an RBI-triple into the gap ...... or he might have grounded into a double play.

o

SD? Okay, boomer

Which is why teams often try to maximize the points scored when given the opportunity. A TD is worth more than two FGs. It’s exactly why redzone defense is talked about so much. Holding a team to 3 is a win for the defense when 29 teams currently have a 50% or better TD rate inside the 20.

That is different than your previous statement of always take the points.

I’d argue the KC prolific offense is likely the reason they felt the need to go for it. Similar to Belichick’s infamous 4th and 2 attempt against the Colts. I can tell you I wanted the Pats to punt. Contrary to all the talk here you need to take into account the opponent. The Chargers knowing their defense wasn’t good enough to hold Mahomes down was likely why they felt they needed 7 instead of settling for FGs. May have cost them the game this time. If it had won them the game we wouldn’t be talking about it.

No one in LA goes to charger games.

Frank out coached BB tonight. And it wasn’t even close

The decision to kick a FG late sealed the Patriots loss.

But it wasn't the first time!

He did, but I’m not sure he did it on purpose. If that makes sense.

Wentz was awful tonight. Just brutal. Then Pittman got tossed(what the hell was that, anyway?)

Frank really had no choice but to ride Taylor and the O-Line.

Which turned out to be a genius move.

o


Piggybacking off of the recently-cited cause-and-effect phenomenon, it's possible that Wentz would have been a little less awful in the 2nd half last night had Pittman not been ejected from the game in the 3rd quarter.

o

o



(vs. CARDINALS, 12/25)


At the very end of the first half, I was wondering what the hell Reich was doing in regard to clock management ...... we had all 3 timeouts left, and after Pittman caught a pass in-bounds, he just casually let an additional 10 seconds run off of the clock before finally calling a time-out with only 21 seconds left.

But considering the surrounding circumstances, I think that Reich may have been going ultra-conservative and just playing for the field goal for numerous reasons.


1) ) The entire starting offensive line is missing.

2) ) Because of that, I think that Reich was a little leery of taking a chance on a turnover from a rushed pass or a strip-sack.

3) ) The Colts were getting the ball to start the second half, so they were kind of in the driver's seat in regard to momentum.

4) ) While letting the clock run down as much as they did after the in-bonds catch certainly hurt the Colts' chances of getting into the end-zone instead of just settling for the field goal, it made absolute certain that Kyler Murray wasn't going to have a second left to pull something off on the other end ...... LITERALLY, not leaving him a single second to work with after the field goal.


Because of all of that, I think that Reich was doing the opposite of what he usually does, which is risk everything like a wild-man ...... and that may be a good sign of his positive evolution as a head coach.

o

this is a really terrible thread

Well, the title stinks, but it’s kind of cool to keep around and rub Chopped’s face in it.

Dude did a great job managing the game tonight. Tough gut it out win in the face of some ridiculous circumstances.

Think this crow tastes better than any of the turkey or ham I had tonight!

Chewy, if there’s one thing I love about you it’s how you can eat crow.

Most of the time, you ARE right (you were right about Roy Hall, you and I battled bitterly about him and you were one trillion percent right). You called that one (and many others) and I got nothing.

But I do know that when you call one wrong, you’re always man enough to admit it. More than so, so many can say.

Hope you had a great Christmas, brother.

One thing I know. Neutered, no leg, tongueless Urban Meyer does NOT win that game last night.

There you go folks, there you go. Yeah I told you so. This dude is a turd. Dead ender that will squander the amazing talents of Nelson, Leonard and Taylor.

This organization is NEVER going to do jack with this bum as the head cheese.