Big J wrote:CrimsonCrew wrote:Big J wrote:
Yes, and Mahomes also won a superbowl with a bottom half defense. It doesn’t matter how his team is limited, he just finds a way to win.
When did he do that? In 2019, their D was 7th in points allowed (we were 8th). They were 17th in yards allowed - so technically "bottom half," but barely. Points allowed is a better metric for evaluating a unit, though it lacks nuance. In 2022, they were 16th in points and 11th in yards. Last year their D was second in points and yards.
Let's take a closer look at that 2022 SB win, as that's clearly the year their D was the worst. In the divisional game, they allowed 20 points against the Jaguars (including a FG with 30 seconds left).
In the AFCCG, they held the Bengals to 20 points. They had two INTs and five sacks of Burrow. The Chiefs scored 10 points in the second half as Mahomes lost a fumble and they punted three times. After the Bengals tied the game, the D held the Bengals to drives of 17 yards and 29 yards to keep them in it. The D forced a punt and the STs returned it 29 yards to set Mahomes up for the winning FG, and that drive netted five yards until a boneheaded unnecessary roughness penalty put them in FG range and basically handed them the win. The offense did the heavy lifting in a SB that was a real shootout. Again, nothing against Mahomes. He's incredible. But he didn't exactly do it himself.
And the discussion is not Mahomes vs. Purdy. Mahomes is a once-in-a-generation player. We missed out on him (thanks for not scouting QBs that year, Kyle....). If the fallback plan is to wait for a Mahomes, we're going to be disappointed. But even Mahomes needs help.
Every QB needs help, but the greats can win with less help than the mediocre guys. Mahomes has consistently gone deep in the playoffs with teams that were far from perfect. It's better to have a great QB who can elevate a team out of mediocrity rather than one who needs everything around him to be perfect to succeed.
This is a pretty pointless post. Again, we're not getting Mahomes. But saying everything needs to be perfect around Purdy to win is laughable in light of the playoffs last year.
Our D was shaky at best in the playoffs last year, particularly the first two rounds. McCaffrey was not special as a runner. We fell way behind and Purdy had to will us to victory in both games prior to the SB (granted his struggles in the rain against the Packers was a big part of why we trailed). In the SB, Deebo was awful. I still have no idea why we kept calling plays to him. Our OL couldn't handle the blitz scheme. Purdy still did enough to win that game if any one of about eight plays go a different way (just off the top of my head, not stopping Mahomes on 4th down in OT, botching the play call and execution on the 3rd and 5 that could have salted the game away, Burford leaving Jones unblocked on the 3rd down in the red zone in OT, Luter letting the punt hit him, the missed XP, the no-call on a blatant hold against Hargrave on 3rd and long when Mahomes ran for it, etc., etc.).
