Playoffs, 2021-22 Season

[Xenos]

I don't know why this notion - that Burrow makes it to/wins the SB - is such any agony for some. If we had been drafting 1st in the year that Burrow was coming out of college we would have picked him over Herbert without question. In other words, it's not like we passed on Burrow to take Herbert and are now second guessing ourselves...again.

Burrow, by all accounts, is a class guy; and a really good young QB. I don't begrudge him any success.

If it makes you feel any better, had Cincy taken Herbert with the #1 pick and we drafted Burrow at #6, Herbert would probably be playing in the AFC Championship game next week. It's a TEAM game. And Cincy is a better team, on balance, than the Chargers right now.

[PR#1]

I'll go one further. Unless we fix our run defense we'll miss the playoffs again.

You are not making the playoffs with the 31st ranked run defense.

That falls squarely at the feet of telesco who has been here 9 years and still cant build a Dline.

Staley is far less to blame

[21&500]

https://www.insider.com/nfl-buffalo-bills-dont-do-squats-never-get-injured-playoffs-2022-1

Injuries weren't our problem heading into week 18
But this is interesting
Looking at Ekeler

[21&500]

I welcome the new 3 qb rivalry, or 5 if you count Love and Hurts
I look forward (and confident) to comparing all 5 for years to come

[Formula 21]

from WaPo

At snowy Lambeau Field, the heavyweight 49ers delivered an old-school lesson


5 minRobbie Gould kicks the game-winning field goal as time expires to put the San Francisco 49ers into the NFC title game. (Jeffrey Phelps/AP)
By Sally Jenkins
Columnist
Today at 7:19 a.m. EST




So much for modernity. Just when the NFL was all about the new epochal passing game and the impossibility of winning big without the franchise quarterback, here comes this San Francisco 49ers team that might as well be wearing black metal cleats, whose highlights belong on jerky, grainy old film, and who, God knows, must eat rare beefsteak for breakfast. The moral to them, with their bandaged-handed quarterback and their toss sweeps, is that football is still a hitting game, and still a game won as much by the unglamorous men as the glamorous.
Matt LaFleur is a forward-thinking play-caller with the Green Bay Packers, but he learned on Saturday night that it’s not good enough to coach two-thirds of a team, if you don’t want to get heart-broke in the snow at home. You better attend to the special teams too, in all of their role-playing particularities and tedium, or you will get rolled. Because the margins of victory are thin at the divisional playoff stage, and in this case, they produced an overwhelming, game-killing shift.

Aaron Rodgers, nobody has ever spun the ball with more ease and know-it-all chill than him, but ultimately those MVP qualities were useless against the sheer passion play of the 49ers defense, who turned iced-over Lambeau Field into a shoulder-driving, spit-flying display of old-time hockey.

Aaron Rodgers and Packers bounced from playoffs by 49ers after fourth-quarter collapse

“It was a mature type of game today,” Jimmy Garoppolo said afterward. Is that what you called it, that stalemate in the driving snow at Lambeau Field, 13-10? It wasn’t just a mature football game, it was damn near from another century. The 49ers were simply tremendous in what used to be known as “all phases of the game,” and it’s a good thing they were, that head coach Kyle Shanahan didn’t listen to the geniuses who decided the pass was all that mattered.

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The 49ers had everything — everything except that guy, the quarterback you’re supposed to need so badly to win anything big. Garoppolo, with his sore shoulder and his torn, wrapped-up thumb, was as maddeningly inconsistent as he always is, with moments of appalling bad judgment and errancy — just 6 for 13 with 76 yards and an interception by the third quarter, plus two or three other near picks — but he had an emotional steadiness that mattered just as much as the 49ers trailed in the final minute, a willingness to keep coming back for more and hazard another throw despite flinching pressure. The 49ers had a strange faith in him, which he ratified by connecting with George Kittle and Deebo Samuel for 12 and 14 yards to help set up the game-winning 45-yard field goal by Robbie Gould.

“There was a calmness,” Garoppolo said later. “We realized it was just going to be that kind of game.”
Wide receiver Deebo Samuel gained 39 yards on the ground in a game that felt like it was from another century. (Quinn Harris/Getty Images)
Yes, that kind of game. The kind of game that left men hobbling off the field with “stingers” and exhaling long plumes of white frost as the snow blew sideways. The kind of game that turned on game-saving defensive stands, and the valiant charge of defensive lineman Jordan Willis to overwhelm Green Bay’s punting unit so Talanoa Hufanga could carry the blocked ball into the end zone with less than five minutes left, the 49ers’ only touchdown. The kind of game that turned on just a few fundamentals and desperate efforts. Among them was that third-down call on the final drive.

It was third down and seven yards to go, to be precise, and the 49ers were still out of field goal range on that icing field. Which is when Shanahan told Garoppolo to stick the ball in Samuel’s stomach and let him cut back against the grain. Nine yards. And now they were inside the 30 with under a minute to go.

Which reminded you just how much the running game still matters after all. And of something Los Angeles Chargers Coach Brandon Staley, known as one of the game’s great young innovators, said about it earlier this season.

Going deep: How this wave of NFL QBs have changed the long ball

“There’s a physicality to the game that’s real, right?” Staley said. “If you’re just a passing team, there’s a physical element to the game that the defense doesn’t have to respect. And that’s the truth. Because the data will tell you that you don’t need a run game to play pass. You don’t need that. But what the running game does for you, it brings a physical dimension to the football game. And what the running game does that the passing game does not, is the running forces the defense to play block and to tackle. That happens on a run play — you must play blocks and you must tackle. In the passing game, those things don’t need to happen, right? You don’t have to play as many blocks. And you may not have to tackle based on incomplete or not. So, what the running game does is it really challenges your physicality, and that’s why I think the run game is important to a quarterback. It’s literally going to allow him to have more space to operate when you do throw the football.”

Let’s just say that there was a lot of blocking and tackling in this game and let that be a lesson to the airy innovators.

Another lesson for the rest of league is that, well, it turns out Kyle Shanahan can coach any kind of team, in any kind of way. And he apparently has a hell of an eye for assistant coaches, too, judging by the jobs defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans and special teams coordinator Richard Hightower did. In the past three weeks the 49ers have won three straight must-have games on the road, beating the Los Angeles Rams, the Dallas Cowboys and the Packers in consecutive order. Against the Rams they had to come from 17 points down to win in overtime just to make the playoffs at all. And they never led against the Packers until Gould’s kick sailed through the uprights with no time left.

Shanahan’s reputation up to this point has been all about offensive ingenuity. But he must be reconsidered in light of the last few weeks. The 49ers are now in the NFC championship game for the second time in three years. They’re a team of serious, heavyweight substance and rare completeness. Oh, and they have one more thing, another old-fashioned quality. “The fight in this team is ridiculous,” Garoppolo said.

[Xenos]

I'll go one further. Unless we fix our run defense we'll miss the playoffs again.

You are not making the playoffs with the 31st ranked run defense.

That falls squarely at the feet of telesco who has been here 9 years and still cant build a Dline.

Staley is far less to blame

Definitely can’t have the run defense be that bad, even in a passing league. All we need is our offense to stay the same, but the defense and ST to be mid tier, and we can definitely go deep.

[powderblueboy]

https://www.insider.com/nfl-buffalo-...layoffs-2022-1

Injuries weren't our problem heading into week 18
But this is interesting
Looking at Ekeler

That is interesting. Bufallo blew out and totally outclassed a good/solid New England team.

Reminds me of the New York Giants novel program of lifting during the season, which lead to them blowing out team in the playoffs, on their way to their 1rst Super Bowl victory. Every team followed suite the following year.

I think i can live with Buffalo beating the snot out of the Chiefs today.

[jamrock]

I don't know why this notion - that Burrow makes it to/wins the SB - is such any agony for some. If we had been drafting 1st in the year that Burrow was coming out of college we would have picked him over Herbert without question. In other words, it's not like we passed on Burrow to take Herbert and are now second guessing ourselves...again.

Burrow, by all accounts, is a class guy; and a really good young QB. I don't begrudge him any success.

If it makes you feel any better, had Cincy taken Herbert with the #1 pick and we drafted Burrow at #6, Herbert would probably be playing in the AFC Championship game next week. It's a TEAM game. And Cincy is a better team, on balance, than the Chargers right now.

It has nothing to do with whether we would have picked Burrow at #1. Of course we would have. It has everything to do with Burrow being anointed the new QB god and getting valuable post season experience and wins in his second season (and first full season). It puts him squarely at the top of the class. And with that comes painful memories of Ben and Eli, generous calls and media live that influences everything.

[powderblueboy]

49ers win and now everything Shanarat Jr does is golden.
Needing to block a punt for the victory is not a good position to be in, no matter how well coached your special teams are.

Chargers definitely need to be better balanced; and part of obtaining that balance is a better RT and running game so that you don't completely stall
on offense: something we saw more than a few times this season.

Jerome Ford in the 3rd round should be a definite target in my eyes.
Pipkens might be acceptable to me - he was a mauler in the run game, those two games they allowed him on the field.
Why the frick did they start Norton against the Raiders?

[ghost]

https://www.insider.com/nfl-buffalo-...layoffs-2022-1

Injuries weren't our problem heading into week 18
But this is interesting
Looking at Ekeler

Thank you for this article on the Bills. I did not realize that the Bills played a perfect game against the Patriots. It was beautiful, I didn't know it was perfect.

NFL: Don't do squats during the season; When it's hot, drink pickle juice before the game to prevent dehydration, and when it's really cold, put a thin layer of vaseline on your face.

FWIW, A thin coat of vaseline on eggs can protect them for a year, unrefrigerated.

[jamrock]

I'll go one further. Unless we fix our run defense we'll miss the playoffs again.

You are not making the playoffs with the 31st ranked run defense.

That falls squarely at the feet of telesco who has been here 9 years and still cant build a Dline.

Staley is far less to blame

Don’t know why you’re letting the defensive genius off the hook. Everybody wants Jones and Chenna back and Linval Joseph was well regarded this past season. Bosa is Bosa. So there was enough talent on the DL

[ghost]

Brady is going to be under duress.