Divisional Round Sunday Open Thread

It seems unlikely that yesterday’s games can be topped, although at least one of these games looks great. A couple of links to discuss:

Tanier has more on the 49ers. Basically, it seems like York realizes he made a massive blunder by letting one of the league’s worst GMs push out one of the league’s best coaches, and while he can’t bring himself to fire Baalke and directly fire Baalke, it certainly seems likely that whoever has the GM title in the media guide Gamble and Kelly will be running things before too long. At least if Gamble takes the dominant role in personnel, this is probably an improvement — but it’s still a major downgrade from Harbaugh and anyone more competent than Baalke.

I agree with Barnwell that McCarthy should have gone for two at the end of the game yesterday. I don’t think, however, that it’s nearly as clear-cut a blunder as his worst decisions in Seattle last year. If you assume that the Packers were big underdogs to the Cardinals — as they were before the game, something I’m not second-guessing because I would have set a similar line — you should definitely go for 2. However, I can understand McCarthy having seen four quarters of watching how an obviously not 100% Carson Palmer was playing and assuming that he was not a big underdog. I don’t think that’s entirely unreasonable. (I’d also say that yesterday’s game is a good demonstration of Bill James’s old dictum that when evaluating players before the postseason its important to take a broader picture of a player’s abilities and not just focus on that year’s stats. If you look at 2015, Palmer looks better than Rodgers. If you look at any previous year, Rodgers looks way ahead of Palmer. It seems clear that we should assume that Rodgers is way better. This doesn’t mean the Packers weren’t significant underdogs — Palmer is surrounded by a lot more talent, which is what bailed him out yesterday. But it does mean that McCarthy’s apparent assumption that he had a better than 40% game of winning the game it OT isn’t absurd. You also have to be concerned about getting a 2-point conversion without Cobb on the field.)

Speaking of which, an interesting point by CrunchyFrog in comments:

A thought on Mike McCarthy. I’ve been somewhat skeptical of his ability as head coach, but reflecting on his playoff record in his 10 years with Green Bay something interesting comes up. Yes, he’s 8-7, including 4-0 in the super bowl year. Yes, he’s been to the playoffs in 8 of 10 years, and 7 in a row. But interesting in what his 7 losses have looked like:

2007: Conference Final, 23-20 (OT) vs NYG
2009: Wild Card 51-45 (OT) at AZ
2011: Divisional 37-20 vs NYG
2012: Divisional 45-31 at SF
2013: Divisional 23-20 vs SF
2014: Conference Final 28-22 (OT) at Seattle
2015: Divisional 26-20 (OT) at AZ

4 of the 7 losses were in over time. Another (2013) was decided on the last play of regulation.

So, on the one hand give the guy credit for being in contention in almost every playoff game he’s been in (13 of 15). On the other hand, like Andy Reid he could really benefit from a coach whose role is to figure out what to do in the final minutes and overtime to maximize his chances of winning.

And yes, he does tend to lose almost all of his close playoff games. Although 4 of his 8 playoff wins were decided by a touchdown or less, none of those games came down to wire. In short, if the game came down to the final play, his team lost.

In this sample size, this doesn’t prove that McCarthy’s obvious limitations as an in-game coach are the reason the Packers have a poor record in close post-season games — it could be random chance. And, of course, chance does play a significant role, no matter what — he was absolutely obliterated by Carroll on the sidelines in last year’s Conference Final, and yet Seattle still needed an extraordinary number of things to break right to win. But I doubt it’s a coincidence. One thing to add is that while in most cases winning or losing a disproportionate number of close games is just luck, the one proven exception is that teams with ultra-elite QBs can have an advantage in close games. The fact that McCarthy has an ultra-elite QB and has underachieved in close playoff games is pretty damning.

Does this mean he should be fired? Not necessarily. I certainly wouldn’t dream of it if it was important to Rodgers to keep him. But if I were Thompson I’d try to get him some help making tactical decisions. As someone mentioned in comments yesterday, the model here is Ron Rivera, a very good Monday-to-Sunday coach who knew he needed help as a sideline decision-maker and improved. Andy Reid, whose clock management is as horrible as ever even after it played a major role in losing him a Super Bowl, is the more mystifying alternate path in terms of how this can play out.

Oh, and speaking of CrunchyFrog he’s made me an addict of Josh McDaniels, coaching SUPERPROSPECT stories like this. The pattern is simple: someone in the Patriots organization — let’s call him “Like Mombardi” — leaks to friendly reporters that McDaniels doesn’t want any job he didn’t get and wasn’t interviewed for, but makes it clear that he is a RED HOT coaching SUPERGENIUS who is a TOP CANDIDATE for any remaining job. And the fact that he doesn’t get even interviewed for those jobs — logically enough, since if you’re going to play the hotshot assistant lottery you’d probably go with one who didn’t spectacularly flame out in his first job, and that goes triple for hotshots who have never shown aptitude outside of Belichick’s system — won’t stop the cycle from repeating next year. It’s hilarious.

…..[Erik] Andy Reid, ladies and gentlemen:

With the clock moving, the Chiefs huddled and didn’t get off another snap before the two-minute warning.

“I’m not sure exactly what you’re talking about,” Reid said when asked about the clock management late in the game.

Then Reid said, “We wanted to get a play off. There was 2:20 on the clock. We wanted to make sure we got our best personnel on the field for that play, and we didn’t get that done.”