Originally posted by SweetOJ:
This thread is where rationality goes to die.
Kyle's critics have made up their minds - not winning a Super Bowl is a firable offense. It doesn't matter how close he gets and the horrible luck he's had with the sheer # of injuries to critical players, the rate of lost fumbles, etc. They want blood, and the easy solution to a terribly complicated problem is always what angry/shortsided people desire.
These people live in a world where winning it all is a mythical and simple thing - either you can or you can't. And they think he can't because he hasn't. They don't understand their intuitions and not facts drive their confirmation bias, and they never will. Best to not argue with them because they cannot be reasoned with. It's like telling a religious person there may inconsistencies in their beliefs. They might believe they are being rational, but when it comes down to it, there are zero facts that will convince them that not winning it all yet doesn't mean he won't win one ever. They are simply too hurt by the fact that we got close but didn't quite finish, so they want to remove themselves from the one that hurt them, and that's always going to be the coach. Never mind that you have to get the playoffs to win it all, and when you get close you risk falling short.
We as fans want the game we love to be determined by the players and the coaches, and they kinda are. But if you'r luck is bad enough, it trumps everything else. When the Broc gets hurt on the first passing play when we were on a 12 game winning streak, that's Kyle's fault to them. Could he have devised a better blocking scheme for the play where Broc was hurt? Sure! And I could have avoided my car accident on the highway by staying on the surface streets or better yet, staying home. But that's hindsight, and it's always 20-20. The coach deserves his share of the credit/blame, but Kyle haters put ALL the responsbility on him. The players need to play well, and do what they are told, which clearly doesn't always happen. And dumb luck, who falls on the football when it's loose, plays a MASSIVE and DECISIVE role in who wins and losses individual games. Andy Reid is the messiah to these people, the same guy who was once ran out of Philly for "not be able to get us to the next level". In the 2023 SB, the Chiefs fumbled 5 times, but lost only one, the Niners fumbled twice, but lost both. The game still went into overtime, despite the Chiefs getting multiple more scoring opportunities than the Niners. Just imagine if we recovered 6 of the 7 fumbles? To these people, Kyle beats Andy by 3 TD's - even though in reality it's the Niners simply getting the breaks and the Chiefs being doomed by unavoidable misfortune. Dumb luck, and dumb luck only made it a WAY closer game than it should have been. And by extension, it made Andy a winner a Kyle a loser in this grossly oversimplified winner take all perspective.
My advice - just let them have their opinions. I realize by contributing to this discussion, I'm a hypocrite. But I think some people on both sides of the fence need to be reminded of just how much luck matters, and that this team's luck has been well below average for an extended period of time. Despite all the burden put on him by people who will only accept the highly improbable result of a championship, Kyle prepares his team at the highest level and gives them as good a chance as anyone else at winning every game he coaches, including the Super Bowl.
Thankfully Jed, while imperfect himself, is not so foolhardy or simplistic to let a top 5 coach go simply because he's out for blood and is too childish to understand winning it all takes as much luck as it does skill. The skill part is relatively fixed, and Kyle's overall track record proves he has it. The luck part can change, and hopefully it will. If it doesn't, he'll never win one and the naysayers will convice themselves they've been right all along. But we can only control what we can control. Like it or not, the rest is up to chance.
Great post.
