our head coach.

"Crash Jensen wrote:

Admittedly it's a gestalt impression based on disparate sources of information that converge in that direction.

Fancy way of saying you don't know and it's a guess.

Omar Kelly is an idiot.

"Finatik wrote:

Fancy way of saying you don't know and it's a guess.

It’s actually a way of indicating an information gathering process that makes it different from a mere guess. However, admittedly I have no way of confirming it with absolute certainty.

"Crash Jensen wrote:

It’s actually a way of indicating an information gathering process that makes it different from a mere guess. However, admittedly I have no way of confirming it with absolute certainty.

It's a better explanation than anyone else is giving, and it makes perfect sense with regards to human thought and behavior.

"resnor wrote:

It's a better explanation than anyone else is giving, and it makes perfect sense with regards to human thought and behavior.

Ahh. His guess is the best guess so his guess must be true. Gotcha. Could be right. But it seems strange that only the "goofball" issue comes out with certain teams but the rest of the year the goofballness isn't a problem. Yes. That now that I see it, it makes perfect sense.

"Finatik wrote:

Ahh. His guess is the best guess so his guess must be true. Gotcha. Could be right. But it seems strange that only the "goofball" issue comes out with certain teams but the rest of the year the goofballness isn't a problem. Yes. That now that I see it, it makes perfect sense.

If you have a physical talent advantage over your opponent, your mentality as a team matters less, as you're likely to simply outplay them physically. However, when physical talent between teams becomes more equivalent, then emotional factors like team culture and leadership can become paramount. And that's exactly where this team exhibited repeated difficulty this year -- in competing with good teams that were presumably highly driven to win.

"Crash Jensen wrote:

If you have a physical talent advantage over your opponent, your mentality as a team matters less, as you're likely to simply outplay them physically. However, when physical talent between teams becomes more equivalent, then emotional factors like team culture and leadership can become paramount. And that's exactly where this team exhibited repeated difficulty this year -- in competing with good teams that were presumably highly driven to win.

So, what are you saying essentially? That the players don't play hard for him?

"Crash Jensen wrote:

If you have a physical talent advantage over your opponent, your mentality as a team matters less, as you're likely to simply outplay them physically. However, when physical talent between teams becomes more equivalent, then emotional factors like team culture and leadership can become paramount. And that's exactly where this team exhibited repeated difficulty this year -- in competing with good teams that were presumably highly driven to win.

As opposed to the teams that are tying to win and they just barely beat them. I don't really recall except for the Denver game, a game that was a blowout. "in competing with good teams that were presumably highly driven to win" - these are professional athletes. You don't think they are highly motivated to win/ Were the Chargers in the 1st game? They were coming off a great season prior. What about the Dallas game? The Bills game was won on a punt return - they just weren't serious and didn't try hard on that play. They were in the playoffs? Those don't count? Based on last year's schedule we had one of the hardest schedules. But they all just bad now.

"TheHighExhaulted wrote:

So, what are you saying essentially? That the players don't play hard for him?

When the team encounters another good team that's serious and highly driven to win, they find it difficult to switch gears from the fun and games their culture revolves around to a serious and driven mentality that can match or overcome that of the opponent. That is all the difference necessary to lose when the opponent is roughly as good physically.

"Crash Jensen wrote:

When the team encounters another good team that's serious and highly driven to win, they find it difficult to switch gears from the fun and games their culture revolves around to a serious and driven mentality that can match or overcome that of the opponent. That is all the difference necessary to lose when the opponent is roughly as good physically.

I think you're way off on this. I don't know if there's another guy that takes football more serious and less for granted than McDaniel does, if you actually knew his backstory.

"Crash Jensen wrote:

When the team encounters another good team that's serious and highly driven to win, they find it difficult to switch gears from the fun and games their culture revolves around to a serious and driven mentality that can match or overcome that of the opponent. That is all the difference necessary to lose when the opponent is roughly as good physically.

We play 9 teams next year with winning records most in the playoff. Are they good physically, serious and highly driven to win teams? Or will that change next year too like it did this year for the teams that had winning records last year? What a crock.

"TheHighExhaulted wrote:

I think you're way off on this. I don't know if there's another guy that takes football more serious and less for granted than McDaniel does, if you actually knew his backstory.

He can be entirely serious about football himself and nonetheless relate to his players in such a way that it creates a culture of fun and games. If his demeanor with the media can reflect something other than ultra-seriousness about football -- and it certainly does -- then certainly his demeanor with his players can follow suit.

"Crash Jensen wrote:

He can be entirely serious about football himself and nonetheless relate to his players in such a way that it creates a culture of fun and games. If his demeanor with the media can reflect something other than ultra-seriousness about football -- and it certainly does -- then certainly his demeanor with his players can follow suit.

Well, we‘ll see. Fact is he’s going to be here next season and we went to the playoffs with him the 2 seasons he‘s been here. I think he has problems with being a gameday coach, abandons the run in games and has problems with halftime adjustments. The thing is, he’s young and he’s a great play designer, I think he has the tools to be a great coach, he just has to put it all together.

"JJ_79 wrote:

Well, we‘ll see. Fact is he’s going to be here next season and we went to the playoffs with him the 2 seasons he‘s been here. I think he has problems with being a gameday coach, abandons the run in games and has problems with halftime adjustments. The thing is, he’s young and he’s a great play designer, I think he has the tools to be a great coach, he just has to put it all together.

He gets into his own head. They just had an end of year press conference and he said that him taking away play calling from himself is on the table.

"Crash Jensen wrote:

He can be entirely serious about football himself and nonetheless relate to his players in such a way that it creates a culture of fun and games. If his demeanor with the media can reflect something other than ultra-seriousness about football -- and it certainly does -- then certainly his demeanor with his players can follow suit.

The Steelers I guess just aren't serious about football either. They are getting shut out by the Bills. OR maybe the Bills are just better then the Steelers and the Dolphins. It couldn't be that could it?

"Finatik wrote:

The Steelers I guess just aren't serious about football either. They are getting shut out by the Bills. OR maybe the Bills are just better then the Steelers and the Dolphins. It couldn't be that could it?

Are you really not understanding what he's saying? Or are you being intentionally obtuse? The issue I have over the past 4 games, it's not that they lost, it's how they lost, and how they looked losing. They looked like they didn't care. Joking around, laughing, smiling...play on the field had no intensity. I know we had tons of backups playing. I still expect to see effort. I didn't see that.

Now you can demean his points all you want, and act like anyone who agrees with him is some sort of idiot, but the reality is, when players are lackadaisical and don't put forth effort, it's generally on the HC.

You read way too much into everything. Most of the time about something that isn’t there.

He already admitted it’s just a guess and he has no idea. There’s no way he could. No way you could. But its me being obtuse? Yeah you’re right it’s me. I see it now.

"resnor wrote:

Are you really not understanding what he's saying? Or are you being intentionally obtuse? The issue I have over the past 4 games, it's not that they lost, it's how they lost, and how they looked losing. They looked like they didn't care. Joking around, laughing, smiling...play on the field had no intensity. I know we had tons of backups playing. I still expect to see effort. I didn't see that.

Now you can demean his points all you want, and act like anyone who agrees with him is some sort of idiot, but the reality is, when players are lackadaisical and don't put forth effort, it's generally on the HC.

I didn't see any of this laughing and joking around on the field and general sense of not caring from this team down the stretch.

The defense played their asses off against Kansas City and Buffalo despite the roster they put out there.

I just didn't see any evidence of the picture you're trying to paint.

You want to see a team quit on it's coach? Watch Philadelphia tonight.

"TheHighExhaulted wrote:

I didn't see any of this laughing and joking around on the field and general sense of not caring from this team down the stretch.

The defense played their asses off against Kansas City and Buffalo despite the roster they put out there.

I just didn't see any evidence of the picture you're trying to paint.

You didn't see laughing and smiling on the sidelines?

"Finatik wrote:

You read way too much into everything. Most of the time about something that isn’t there.

He already admitted it’s just a guess and he has no idea. There’s no way he could. No way you could. But its me being obtuse? Yeah you’re right it’s me. I see it now.

You are acting like there could be no possible way what he's saying is true. You act like anyone who disagrees with you has a completely ludicrous position.

"Finatik wrote:

The Steelers I guess just aren't serious about football either. They are getting shut out by the Bills. OR maybe the Bills are just better then the Steelers and the Dolphins. It couldn't be that could it?

That the Dolphins' difficulties were possibly explained by an inadequate team culture doesn't mean that every team's difficulties are explained similarly.

Again, what points toward the above explanation is the discrepancy between first- and second-half offensive performance over the last five games of the regular season and the wildcard. That discrepancy wasn't present earlier in the season. The teams the Dolphins played in weeks 14 through 18 and the playoffs didn't suddenly "get better" at halftime, nor did the Dolphins suddenly "get worse," in terms of skill and ability.

"resnor wrote:

You are acting like there could be no possible way what he's saying is true. You act like anyone who disagrees with you has a completely ludicrous position.

I asked how he knew this was true and he admitted he had no idea if it was. It was just him guessing. Where did I say his position is Ludicrous? This is a message board. We take differing opinions. The “I’m so persecuted” take isn’t a good look. He’s not crying about it. But you do you.

"Finatik wrote:

The Steelers I guess just aren't serious about football either. They are getting shut out by the Bills. OR maybe the Bills are just better then the Steelers and the Dolphins. It couldn't be that could it?

No, that can't be how football works, LOL. Good teams beating less good teams...that sounds like a fairy tale.

People can spin this however they want in their heads, but that does not make it any less true or false. We played the Bills with 12 of 22 starters missing, and 10 of 22 against the Chiefs. That's not counting Waddle or Tyreek, both of which were limping and would have taken the week off if it wasn't the playoffs. The injuries were devastating- every starter does matter.

Plain and simple, Miami was the "less good" team the past few weeks. Our offense is built on speed from Tyreek/Waddle and a power run game. We didn't have that and it's not shocking that McDaniel couldn't create a completely new offense in December to compensate. Again, we're not talking about missing one key starter...we did that in November and compensated. We're talking about over half the team being injured...including Tua with the shoulder.

I get that many need their hot takes about not winning a playoff game makes this team a complete failure. To me, that's a child's reaction, a temper tantrum where the facts don't matter. Some actually believe that we can walk into a frozen stadium with half our starters and beat defending champions...or we're mentally weak!?! That's just not how football works.

Buffalo is the healthiest team in the NFL right now and they're also currently on the biggest win streak. Those two things are not a coincidence.

"KeyFin wrote:

No, that can't be how football works, LOL. Good teams beating less good teams...that sounds like a fairy tale.

People can spin this however they want in their heads, but that does not make it any less true or false. We played the Bills with 12 of 22 starters missing, and 10 of 22 against the Chiefs. That's not counting Waddle or Tyreek, both of which were limping and would have taken the week off if it wasn't the playoffs. The injuries were devastating- every starter does matter.

Plain and simple, Miami was the "less good" team the past few weeks. Our offense is built on speed from Tyreek/Waddle and a power run game. We didn't have that and it's not shocking that McDaniel couldn't create a completely new offense in December to compensate. Again, we're not talking about missing one key starter...we did that in November and compensated. We're talking about over half the team being injured...including Tua with the shoulder.

I get that many need their hot takes about not winning a playoff game makes this team a complete failure. To me, that's a child's reaction, a temper tantrum where the facts don't matter. Some actually believe that we can walk into a frozen stadium with half our starters and beat defending champions...or we're mentally weak!?! That's just not how football works.

Buffalo is the healthiest team in the NFL right now and they're also currently on the biggest win streak. Those two things are not a coincidence.

I do think the loss to Buffalo was devastating to them. McD was hitting it hard as the goal from what I saw in HK. Sometimes when you don’t hit the goal that the teams been striving for so hard and consistent, when it’s in your grasp and it just slips through your fingertips it can be devastating. When I say team that could be any team like a sales team.

it almost looked as if all the air was let out of the balloon after that game and they couldn’t recover mentally from that in time for KC. Is that lacking mental toughness? It it human nature? Maybe a little of both.

As a leader this is where you have to shine. You have to pick up the pieces and use the disappointment as a motivational tool. I think this is all part of the “learning how to win” concept that you hear so much about. Will be interesting how McD and the team responds. Good leaders will get the “team” back into the right head space, wit a little time. Sometimes you need to let that disappointment and hurt marinate when you miss a huge goal like they did. Not too long but enough time to season the meat so to speak.