Bucs vs the other 6 AFC playoff teams?

[Kip Smithers]

2 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

They clearly were the best in their division at the latter end of the season. They smeshed NO. Went into GB and beat them. Wiped out the Chiefs. They were the best at the business end of the season.

 

Did you see the state of Drew Brees in the playoffs? Yet the Saints were a TD away from winning the game with a broken down Brees. They weren’t the best. They beat the Packers, kudos for them for that. Saints were clearly the better team.

[CP3MVP]

17 minutes ago, Kip Smithers said:

Did you see the state of Drew Brees in the playoffs? Yet the Saints were a TD away from winning the game with a broken down Brees. They weren’t the best. They beat the Packers, kudos for them for that. Saints were clearly the better team.

The saints were clearly better but Tampa beat them by 10 at on the road in the playoffs. 

[SalvadorsDeli]

With the way our offensive line played in the playoffs, I think it would have been a similar dynamic to what the Chiefs dealt (and what our Bills playoff game looked like) where Lamar would have just been running for his life and we would have had a lot of trouble moving the ball. I do think our defense would have posed some real challenges to that Bucs offense and it would have been a fairly tight game. But Brady would have found a way. I think it would have been a close, low-scoring game early and then the Bucs would have pulled away in the 4th quarter. 

[SkippyX]

6 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

I think if I'm remembering, the best team this season in real time went something like...

 

1 - 12: Steelers

12 - 15: Chiefs

15 - 17: Bills

18+ Bucs or Chiefs

This is how it felt

1-4 - Chiefs

5-8 - Steelers

9-12 - Chiefs (Steelers were perfect, but dodging close games)

13-14 - Chiefs

15-17 - Chiefs (but no one wants to play the Ravens)

Playoffs - Packers or Chiefs

2 weeks leading to Super Bowl - Baby GoaT (will he catch Brady after 1 SB win) Chiefs

End of Playoffs - Bucs

Edited February 11, 2021 by SkippyX

[Tk3]

6 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

I think if I'm remembering, the best team this season in real time went something like...

 

1 - 12: Steelers

12 - 15: Chiefs

15 - 17: Bills

18+ Bucs or Chiefs

Mostly correct - Although the Steelers were not the best team LONG before they lost their first game.

14 minutes ago, SkippyX said:

This is how it felt

1-4 - Chiefs

5-8 - Steelers

9-12 - Chiefs (Steelers were perfect, but dodging close games)

13-14 - Chiefs

15-17 - Chiefs (but no one wants to play the Ravens)

Playoffs - Packers or Chiefs

2 weeks leading to Super Bowl - Baby GoaT (will he catch Brady after 1 SB win) Chiefs

End of Playoffs - Bucs

This is a lot better.. I would actually argue that both the Bills and the Ravens were more dominant than the Chiefs in those final 3 weeks, but generally agree

I'll give the Bucs the whole playoff run, tbh

Yes the Chiefs were dominant against the Bills, and yes the Packers were dominant against the Rams.. but at one game each, neither of them really deserve that title

Bucs won 4 games, and were fairly decisive in doing so

[Jakuvious]

It's tough to say for sure, because in addition the the OL/DL mismatch, Bowles did just an absurdly good job of gameplanning against us, and it's hard to judge what he'd do against the other teams, because it likely would've been completely different (what he did against us was far away from his norms.)

I think Buffalo ends up in a very similar place. They didn't have the injuries we did on the OL, but we beat Buffalo by basically just dominating their OL and making Allen struggle, and Tampa's DL is way better than ours, so I see a similar mismatch dictating that one. Their D would struggle just as ours did to pressure Brady, as well.

I don't think Pittsburgh had a chance against anyone worthwhile by the end, there.

Baltimore I think would lose because I just don't really see even their run game doing enough, and they wouldn't have the targets in the passing game to take advantage of Tampa's secondary. Brady wouldn't excel here against their D, but he'd do enough. Maybe if the bad Brady we saw chucking random deep balls showed up, Baltimore could win.

So that leaves Tennessee, Indy, and Cleveland, as the teams I think would've had a chance. The OLs to stack up, and enough versatility on offense to challenge. None of the defenses are that good, but most of Tampa failing on O all year was them stopping themselves anyways. The trouble is, none of these have the most reliable QB play, so it would depend on how those guys showed up.

 

I really do think it's hard to say though, because no matter how the year ended, Tampa throughout was just an incredibly streaky team. They'd alternate between halves on being dominant or dormant. And we certainly spent much of the year sleepwalking, just stepping up when we wanted (Baltimore, first half Tampa, Buffalo twice, etc.) So both teams in the game were streaky in their own way, and they definitely showed up on different ends of their inconsistent spectrums. So if peak Tampa was going to show up regardless, they'd beat anyone. If a different start to a game would've led to one of the lesser versions of Tampa we saw, then maybe anyone could've had a shot.

[SkippyX]

We are probably working from 2 different perspectives.

I am going on what the average fan / talking heads / power rankings guys were thinking.

Its clear the Bucs were the best team throughout the playoffs, but not many people saw it that way.

I had them on the same level as Green Bay and New Orleans but I was not confident they could beat both of them back to back on the road.

I even thought the Chiefs would repeat until Fisher got hurt.

[Thomas5737]

6 hours ago, SalvadorsDeli said:

With the way our offensive line played in the playoffs, I think it would have been a similar dynamic to what the Chiefs dealt (and what our Bills playoff game looked like) where Lamar would have just been running for his life and we would have had a lot of trouble moving the ball. I do think our defense would have posed some real challenges to that Bucs offense and it would have been a fairly tight game. But Brady would have found a way. I think it would have been a close, low-scoring game early and then the Bucs would have pulled away in the 4th quarter. 

There may only be one secondary more physical (or handsy) than the Chiefs and that's the Ravens. If the refs swallowed their whistles I think the Ravens had a chance, although it doesn't seem like a great matchup like the Chargers last year, but if they called it tight like against the Chiefs the Bucs would have an automatic 1st down on half of their pass plays on penalties alone.

[childofpudding]

Bucs put up 30+ in every playoff game, including against the 2nd and 3rd best defenses by DVOA. Granted, some of that was due to short fields. But I think the Bucs would put up 30+ on any AFC team.

So then the question is what team might be able to outscore the Bucs. I think TEN might have been able to with their balanced attack. Buffalo with its lack of running game in the playoffs would probably be as bad as KC. CLE, though. They showed that ability to get hot on offense later in the season, so maybe them.

[brushmyhair]

Bills would beat them

[The Third Rider]

1 hour ago, brushmyhair said:

Bills would beat them

You mean the team that Tom Brady has a 32-3 record against? Somehow I don't see that happening.

[LaFellSBXLIXMVP]

1 hour ago, brushmyhair said:

Bills would beat them

KC in some way chose to be one-dimensional while Buffalo IS one-dimensional. Josh Allen was running around almost as much as Mahomes (at least in the first 2.5 quarters of the SB before he tried to be the hero). Unless Bills fix that o-line to both protect Allen and also allow them to run and come up with better schemes they wont win the SB.

In fact, Bills didn't look good at all in the post season. They were outplayed by the Colts and arguably by the Ravens for the most part of that game as well. The 14 point swing changed that game. Then got bullied by the Chiefs  and Btw that probably helped the Bucs because the league's office took notice.

[Jakuvious]

7 hours ago, Tk3 said:

I'll give the Bucs the whole playoff run, tbh

Yes the Chiefs were dominant against the Bills, and yes the Packers were dominant against the Rams.. but at one game each, neither of them really deserve that title

Bucs won 4 games, and were fairly decisive in doing so

This is hindsight is 20/20 thinking, IMO. In retrospect we can call the Bucs playoff run really impressive, but week to week? They scraped by against Taylor Heinicke. They were losing most of the game against New Orleans, until Brees decided to turnover his way into retirement. And the Green Bay game still wound up close. Only the superbowl is what anyone would call decisive.

I don't think you can argue they were the best team in the postseason, until maybe the moment Eric Fisher went down. And playing an extra playoff game doesn't look better from a power ranking perspective, just means you were worse throughout the year.

But absolutely no one would've said, after the wildcard round, that Tampa is the best team in the league. It was Green Bay or Buffalo or KC, at that point.

[Bolts223]

2 hours ago, Jakuvious said:

This is hindsight is 20/20 thinking, IMO. In retrospect we can call the Bucs playoff run really impressive, but week to week? They scraped by against Taylor Heinicke. They were losing most of the game against New Orleans, until Brees decided to turnover his way into retirement. And the Green Bay game still wound up close. Only the superbowl is what anyone would call decisive.

I don't think you can argue they were the best team in the postseason, until maybe the moment Eric Fisher went down. And playing an extra playoff game doesn't look better from a power ranking perspective, just means you were worse throughout the year.

But absolutely no one would've said, after the wildcard round, that Tampa is the best team in the league. It was Green Bay or Buffalo or KC, at that point.

I don't think Tampa was the clearly dominant team going into the playoffs but I do know people who picked them to go to the SB out of the NFC. My personal thought was that I would be really surprised if it wasn't one of Green Bay, New Orleans or Tampa. (With my NFC power rankings in that order)

I think that Tampa did become better as the postseason went on though. Getting Vea back really did wonders for that defense against both Green Bay and KC. And FWIW: They were 2nd in SRS in the regular season. They had a fairly tough schedule and a fairly high point differential.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Bolts223

[Hunter2_1]

11 hours ago, Tk3 said:

Mostly correct - Although the Steelers were not the best team LONG before they lost their first game.

This is a lot better.. I would actually argue that both the Bills and the Ravens were more dominant than the Chiefs in those final 3 weeks, but generally agree

I'll give the Bucs the whole playoff run, tbh

Yes the Chiefs were dominant against the Bills, and yes the Packers were dominant against the Rams.. but at one game each, neither of them really deserve that title

Bucs won 4 games, and were fairly decisive in doing so

Don't think the consensus can be that Bucs were the best team throughout playoffs, because in the game day thread Chiefs got double the votes Bucs did.