Karlaftis kind of reminds me of Bolton. He's going to be a very good football player.

He def needed to release the ball on that last regulation goal line situation. Def was scared

You also have to remember how much freedom Reid gives Mahomes. For instance, remember the tip drill interception where he hit the DL on a simple middle screen and the ball was picked? A) It was a terrible throw there - the guy was right in front of him, you have to expect him to put his hands up and my memory is that the ball hit him in the damn head. B) It was, most critically to this conversation, an RPO. And Mahomes elected to pull the ball.

Now I don't know what his read keys were, maybe it was the right play. But when you watch it, it sure doesn't look like it. It looks like that play was dead in the cradle. When that's the case on an RPO its fair to question if maybe PM just made the wrong read.

JT O'Sullivan did one of those QB School breakdowns on it that really laid it all out there - he was just a bit of a mess. If he wasn't holding the ball too long, he was rushing through his progressions and blowing up play design. At a point it just didn't matter what Reid tried to do because there WERE plays to be made on virtually every snap. Patrick just wasn't making them. And he picked up some little execution issues in the routes here and there as well, notably the play at the end of the 1st half where he blames Hill for running his route poorly. He thinks Hill was supposed to come downhill more as he was coming across and make that catch at the 2 instead of the 4; he just wasn't where he was supposed to be so he came up a yard short.

A lot of instances of players just not executing on plays that SHOULD'VE worked.

EDIT: Just found it - you can see what happened on the Hill play. He turned his head and his feet followed his eyes. When he snapped his head around over his left shoulder, it took his shoulders around a bit and away from the goal-line. When his head/shoulders did that, his feet followed. Not only did he not flatten towards the goal line, from the moment he turned his head around he actually flared BACK another yard or two. I just cannot imagine for a second that is where Hill was supposed to be when he caught that ball and if he catches it coming downhill, he gets into the end-zone. Maybe he was too anxious and turned his head too soon? Maybe if he stays in the route 3 strides longer, those 3 strides are the downhill strides he needs and when he turns around, the balls at the 2/3 yard line for him to catch and bring into the end zone. Just a tiiiiiiiny little execution error that very probably ended our season.

Here's the breakdown in all it's...uh...glory.

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Kid was just awful. It happens.

God almighty, look at that play at 26:14. Tie game, start of the 4th quarter. Feels a little pressure and spins out of it. He has a 30 yard throw to Hill that he's looking right at.

He's made that play how many times in his career? At LEAST a dozen times. That's a pitch and catch for him, especially since he found clean air. He was out there with all kinds of space and time. It's just a step and fire and you have a chance to grab the momentum back.

Don't watch that video if you're squeamish because honestly, as bad as I remember Patrick playing - he was worse. He wasn't just leaving 10/12 yard gains out there. He was leaving 40 yarders on the field. And most of them were fantastic catch/run play design plays where he didn't need to throw the ball more than 15-20 yards and someone was going to have it with room to operate downfield.

It's just completely inexplicable and at times you can hear it in O'Sullivan's voice. He's as confused as the rest of us. The game just suddenly looked to fast for him. Damndest thing I've ever seen in sports honestly.

That game will always be suspicious to me.

The problem is that there is just nobody that benefits from it.

The league doesn't want the Bengals in the SB over the Chiefs. You couldn't pay Mahomes enough to throw that game. And he's too competitive to sabotage it out of spite (as the Bieniemy rumor suggested).

That core group has been together long enough that I can't see internal tension/strife exploding in the locker room.

I think he just got in his own head and for the first time in his career looked young. He looked sped up.

I still think he was injured and they didn’t report it. Probably took a hit in the game and that was it. Same way when we played Henry in the AFCCG, and Dirty Dan hit him hard in the thigh, and that was the last good run he had that game. They never said he was injured, but he likely was.

He looked like a guy who expected something to go wrong. Like he expected their early season demons that plagued them for half the year to return. So he protected. Protected way too much.

I think their was a legit lack of trust that his receivers would hold onto the ball.

What we do know is he ran around a lot, didn't pull the trigger, and took sacks. He made bad throws. He didn't do the things he's normally good at doing.

He can figure it out and fix it or he can feel the pull of the quicksand...

Not unfounded, either. He didn't play particularly well, but I think he's going to trust the new guys much more than the former "group."

He played like a family member was kidnapped and he had to throw the game in the second half or they would get killed.

Having witnessed the 2nd half and OT of the AFCCG in person, I never want to see footage of the game again.

Were you on a tropical vacation for the 1st half?

What thread is this?

It's the "Let's hit our dicks with a sledgehammer for the 7000th time instead of talking about the future DROY" thread