Who was the second best team in 2018-19?

[Chargers]

I voted Saints. The Chiefs defense wouldn't have contained Thomas and Company in 2018. I think the Saints defense could muster a pass rush against the Chiefs similar to how the Rams did in the regular season game. They are also use to winning shootouts.

[Tetsujin]

5 hours ago, lancerman said:

Again you have a situation where the SB teams played KC 3 times one was at home and away. All 3 times their defense was a liability and they couldn’t out score the opposing offense. 

I don't care for that analysis. They were anyone's game. Extrapolating your claim, KC would go 0-10 if they played NE and LAR 5x each?

[Archimedes]

Lol, maybe I should have asked who people thought was the best team in 2018 instead of the 2nd best team. I tried not to be biased because I'm a Chiefs fan, but other non-Chiefs fans are giving my team a lot of credit.

Anyways, I think all three of these teams are really close. I don't think any of them established themselves as above the other.

[lancerman]

31 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

I don't care for that analysis. They were anyone's game. Extrapolating your claim, KC would go 0-10 if they played NE and LAR 5x each?

The claim is whether they were better or not than those teams. New England beat them twice both home and away. There is absolutely no claim for them to be better under any analysis. Twice New England proved they could shut their offense down early and whether the storm at the end.

LA I’ll give you. But LA proved that they could hang 50 points on them and later in the season LA’s defense proved they could be more stout than KC’s. 
 

Hell there is debate whether the Chiefs were better than the Saints. 

[Archimedes]

12 minutes ago, lancerman said:

The claim is whether they were better or not than those teams. New England beat them twice both home and away. There is absolutely no claim for them to be better under any analysis. Twice New England proved they could shut their offense down early and whether the storm at the end.

LA I’ll give you. But LA proved that they could hang 50 points on them and later in the season LA’s defense proved they could be more stout than KC’s. 
 

Hell there is debate whether the Chiefs were better than the Saints. 

I'll give you the Patriots being better than the Chiefs, but it’s not quite sure clear cut as you're making it. The Pats D showed zero ability to stop the Chiefs after the first half. They couldn't even keep them out of FG range with less than a minute to go. There's very little evidence they would have stopped the Chiefs O had they lost the coin toss in OT.

As far as LA hanging 50, they weren't doing that again. Goff was still playing at a very high level at that time. He wasn't playing as well in the playoffs. Now, I'm not saying the Chiefs were better than the Rams, as I do think it was close.

Edited July 1, 2020 by Archimedes

[Ray Reed]

Pretty much that entire year I thought the Saints were on a collision course to the Super Bowl until that PI call tbh

Edited July 1, 2020 by Ray Reed

[Hunter2_1]

11 hours ago, Archimedes said:

Lol, maybe I should have asked who people thought was the best team in 2018 instead of the 2nd best team. I tried not to be biased because I'm a Chiefs fan, but other non-Chiefs fans are giving my team a lot of credit.

Anyways, I think all three of these teams are really close. I don't think any of them established themselves as above the other.

I'm one of those. I said KC was the best, but in hindsight and as Lancer pointed out, the D did let you down too many times in crucial games. In your 3 most crucial games, it was a sieve. 

On that basis I have to change and put them 2nd. I agree it's close up there though, especially when you consider the games NE/KC/LAR/NO had with each other when they played. One score games, essentially and some brilliant coaching the difference. Pats once again the unflashy, effective, efficient machine. Probably not the best at any one thing (unlike Mahomes and the Chiefs air attack, for example) but the all-round all corners covered sufficiently team.

Edited July 2, 2020 by Hunter2_1