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What if Andy Dalton hadn't injured his thumb in 2015?


Elky

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23 hours ago, August4th said:

I think they beat the steelers in the WC with a healthy Dalton, but get smoked by NE in the div round

Let's say Cincinnati beats Pittsburgh in week 14 and everything else remains unchanged. That would make the AFC side look like this:

1. Cincinnati (13-3)
2. Denver (12-4)
3. New England (12-4)
4. Houston (9-7)
5. Kansas City (11-5)
6. New York (10-6)

6. New York at 4. Houston - Houston got blown out by KC, a team very similar to NYJ at the time.


5. Kansas City at 3. New England - No changes here.

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3. New England at 2. Denver - No changes here.

6. New York at 1. Cincinnati - Cincinnati forces Fitzpatrick into his usual turnovers.

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2. Denver at 1. Cincinnati - This would be a very interesting game. Cincinnati had the offensive line to keep DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller out of Dalton's face, but would Dalton step up in crunch time? He's already made himself a god in Cincinnati and extended Marvin Lewis' career the previous week.

Edited by Elky
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I've thought about this a lot since 2015.  His injury was devastating to the team.  McCarron came in and did ok, but Dalton was a whole different level that year.  He still had some primetime struggles, but the team just played with extreme confidence, and still won even in those few games where Dalton wasn't great.

20 minutes ago, Elky said:

Let's say Cincinnati beats Pittsburgh in week 14 and everything else remains unchanged. That would make the AFC side look like this:

1. Cincinnati (13-3)
2. Denver (12-4)
3. New England (12-4)
4. Houston (9-7)
5. Kansas City (11-5)
6. New York (10-6)

6. New York at 4. Houston - Houston got blown out by KC, a team very similar to NYJ at the time.
5. Chiefs at 3. New England - No changes here.

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3. New England at 2. Denver - No changes here.
6. New York at 1. Cincinnati - Cincinnati forces Fitzpatrick into his usual turnovers.

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2. Denver at 1. Cincinnati - This would be a very interesting game. Cincinnati had the offensive line to keep DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller out of Dalton's face.

This is a good point.  They probably get a first round bye if Dalton doesn't throw that pick and make that tackle.  Which would have changed the complexion of the whole playoffs.

In the end, i think the Bengals probably still fall on their face.  But it would have been nice to see them try to do it at full strength.

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I'd look at the rest of his body of work in the playoffs which is a dumpster fire and predict more dumpster fire.

Dalton is a healthy joke. So I would expect he would have been a healthy joke in 2015 as well.

I can't think of a another NFL QB who got to start 4 playoff games and could not put up a 70 rating in any of them.

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16 hours ago, SkippyX said:

I'd look at the rest of his body of work in the playoffs which is a dumpster fire and predict more dumpster fire.

Dalton is a healthy joke. So I would expect he would have been a healthy joke in 2015 as well.

I can't think of a another NFL QB who got to start 4 playoff games and could not put up a 70 rating in any of them.

The weird thing is, Dalton actually played pretty decent in primetime that year.  A step below the rest of his regular season numbers for that particular year, but still good enough to win 2/3 of them.

Weeks 9/10/11 - TNF, MNF, SNF.  The MNF was a stinker, but the other two were decent/good.

Safe bet is that he'd play down in the playoffs, but we'll never know.

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