thurst44

I was saying Boooo-easley!

Before this year, it would probably have been your guys. Without even getting into the politics, Rodgers has annoyed me and the whole him and Adams making a big deal about not wanting to play for the team--I just can't root for that. Eagles fans are awful. Hated the Cowboys before living through SBs 27 & 28. Obviously not the Bucs--even if I wasn't sick of Brady, they just won last year. If I hadn't had to see Hopkins catching that ball so. many. damn. times. last year, maybe the Cardinals, but I also don't find them a particularly interesting team. The Saints would be lucky to be there. I'm weary of the league trying to make Los Angeles happen--I do like (or respect) Aaron Donald, however. I suppose the 49ers. It's been forever since they have won and I have no particular disdain for them--and would love to finally see Chris Berman's prediction come into reality. Using that logic--I'd love the Bills to face the Bucs or Cowboys... either way we could win a Super Bowl while exorcising a demon. And, again, the 49ers, just because of the whole '90s Berman prediction thing.

Every one but the three. There were only three drives where they made it past the 50. There were eight drives. Three were 3 & out. Two were INTs where McCorkle was on his own side of the field. Two were drives where the Pats had to fight for everything with multiple 4th downs. The other was not as hard-fought, but it still took a lot of time off the clock. Seriously, did you guys watch a different game? I'll say it again. We just beat the Pats handily in their home stadium and allowed them exactly our usual amount of yards which is first in the league and stopped one of the top teams in the NFL cold on 5/8 drives. If you thought "they would have scored" on five drives that were 3 & out or ended in an INT, well, that's on you.

Is this a joke thread? We just beat the Patriots in Foxboro and held them to well below the yardage average for both them and the NFL. They are still the #1 defense by many metrics, including the one commonly used in the NFL. The D held the Pats to 3 & out on first drive, and definitively so, giving the offense the chance to take the lead. The only three drives the Pats had were about as far from easy as possible. Defense gets an A from me. It did what it needed to do in one of the unfriendliest environments in the NFL, and held the team under the average amount of yards and points and never put the team in any serious danger of losing. Criticism is fine, but why are some people coming here to negatively post against the team after a win over the Patriots in Foxboro that puts the Bills in a spot where they have an insanely good chance of winning the division? I'll never get this mentality. Also, how in the world is the Bills defense was terrible anyone's main takeaway from this game.

I think that's the point. Anything can happen, realistically, b/c those are the teams playing three teams who are at a similar level. Then again, it was just kind of a pointless stat to add, b/c given the Jags beating our team, the Lions beating the Cardinals and almost beating the Ravens, the Texans beating the Titans and almost beating the Patriots, it's clear anything can happen this season and all of them are realistically 0-3 wins the way things are going. The other point is the Bills have arguably the easiest path as the only team facing two opponents with losing records in their final three games.

The Patriots spotted a 22-9 lead to the Texans late in the 3rd quarter earlier in this year during their run and barely won, and that's the Texans. Nobody had beat TB in TB in over a year until a team that we beat handily just did. TB owned the Bills in the first half. The Bills made them look foolish in the second and again should have won if not for terrible ref'ing (and that's not my fan bias talking, it's most of the media). But, yes, ref'ing happens and you have to overcome it. However to call it embarrassing to almost pull off a historic victory against the defending Super Bowl champions against the GOAT QB who is not slowing down... well, I just don't get that. The funny thing is after the game, I was feeling down and was surprised that my usually much more negative friends were raving and excited about it. However, I never felt embarrassed after the game (at halftime, sure). I was proud of their resilience. The Jaguars loss was embarrassing. The Colts game, maybe, but I saw that one coming in... Taylor hot, Edmunds and Star out, Milano hurt, Bills playing lacklusterly coming in, Colts playing with passion and seeking revenge for playoff game. The Patriots--well, it was a weird game, but I'd entertain the thought. However, the TB game--no!

The Titans had almost 300 yards without Derrick Henry against the Patriots. I'm not entirely optimistic, but our run D has not been bad all season. Up until the Pats game, the only RBs to have more than 50 yards against us were the two RBs who were on pace for two of the greatest rushing seasons in history (edit: ok, I looked it up and forgot Carlos Hyde's whopping 67 yards). Also, the last two weeks, we were able to stop the run after the D had been on the field for a LONG time. That's the hallmark of a good defense. The Bills have talent, but something does seem off. If you asked me to pick this game, I'd probably pick the Patriots as it's in NE, they've been on a better run. However (1) the Bills still have a great team that can explode at the right time and have by stats the #1 defense which impressed me beyond stats the last two weeks by what they were able to conjure up after taking a punch and without their best player. (2) We have no idea what teams are going to be out there. All of NE's WRs could be out. Whatever your opinion on the pandemic and/or rules, both exist and players have been being crossed off eligibility left and right. I have faith in this team, while noticing some fundamental things that have gone wrong and while most could be temporary, it is hard to see the o-line coming together any time soon (Dawkins could improve as health improves, Brown is more-than-likely a star in the making, and not sure where the DWil of '17 and '20 went, but something just seems rotten in the line). I'm not convinced that the Patriots are such a dominant team as they were being hyped. The book is still out on Mac (but it's a good start), Judon is a beast who has our number, and JC Jackson is weirdly underrated, Hunter Henry has moments of Gronk-like unstoppability and Belichick has earned his legendary status, but they still strike me as more of a hodge-podge of aging-out Pats lifers and meh mercenaries than the fearsome team they were in the Brady years. I'm not saying that I don't see the potential for disaster and there's not a part of me that can feel the 4pm gloom already--but I don't think it's preordained, nor do I think the Bills are not one of the better teams in the NFL even if they have not played like it over the last nine games. Also, this is a very weird season.

Fine. Look, I get it about LAMPs (and had a reaction to SN but nothing specific and think I may have even mixed it up with him/her at one point in time--more aren't you usually negative?) and am not one to start threads (it's like tattoos, if i saw something worth it, maybe), but this one seemed benign and easy to ignore. But then, I could have ignored your comment too, so it is what it is, I guess.

Did anything I wrote say that the O-line is not a problem? However, that's another example of something that could go right. Brown had one of the worst games a player can have. Dawkins was out and he has been up-and-down (this is not just me saying it, this is re-watching him on almost every down) and could come back healthy and have a good game. Darryl Williams was great in 2017 and 2020 so he has it in him. The line's something that needs to be addressed and they probably should change coaches and I'm all for purging all but the tackles and maybe Morse if he restructures, saving money and seeing how the draft falls, but that's another story for another day. I wasn't even arguing that "wake up calls" are valid. It's just lashing out at the OP for having positive thoughts felt a bit extreme, while dismissing the fact that football tends to be volatile and unpredictable and teams' fortunes can shift suddenly is to ignore the history of football and especially this season. The 1-win Lions just beat the #1 NFC Cardinals last week and it wasn't even close.

How did we lose against TB in "embarrassing fashion"? We came back from a 17-point deficit, on the road, against a team with a long streak of winning at home who also happen to be the defending Super Bowl champions who returned all 22 of their starters, and would have won if the refs did not miss a blatant PI that happened right in front of them. Frustrating loss? Sure. Disappointing? Maybe, as it would have been nice to go into OT, guns blazing and finished it off. Bad timing? Definitely. Embarrassing? Hardly.

Teams' spark can come from the strangest places and it's better to pull off a game like this previous one than to lose it. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't something that pulls them together. Perhaps the Bills just have a day on Sunday where everything comes together, or the Patriots are simply not as good as the stretch where they were rolling, and the Bills turn out to be as talented as they looked during their early run. All that said, why did you feel the need to spit on original poster's cheerios for the crime of having faith in the team you both purport to follow?

Funny how the defense is precipitously worse when he does not play or is playing with a serious injury. We have the number one defense (and it's been a top 3 D all the time he is healthy), but, yes, let's run its captain out of town b/c stats. If Cleveland wins, it's probably because the Raiders are really that bad and in that much of a spiral that they could even lose against Fresno State at this point, but who knows. It's a game that epitomizes the mess that the 2021 season has been.

How was Epenesa not BPA--perhaps by your evaluation, but he was a first rounder in most mocks and we got him late in the 2nd round. He could not be more the definition of BPA. He was also a need, but those things aren't mutually exclusive. Ford is easy to say in retrospect. Beane and McDermott seemed to think he was the BPA at the time and he was not considered a reach at the time.

Agreed, although there's an argument that they have been THAT defense in the first half--more of the question is can they keep up the pace (or the caliber of the competition). They are the top yardage and pts defense by a wide margin (about 11 ypg and 2 ppg behind the 2000 Ravens after 8 games), are on pace to match the 2000 Ravens for TDs and sacks. Ravens forced and recovered an almost incomprehensible number of fumbles that season. We are actually third in fumble recoveries per game this year, yet we are on pace to have less than half of what the Ravens did that season.

We do have the number one passing defense in the NFL and only Carolina is remotely close, so we must be doing something right. I get it was a bad game, but it certainly wasn't the defense that put us in that situation. 9 pts and 213 yards against any team is doing its job. Only possible argument is that the penalties changed the tenor of the game.

I get it to a point, but it was at a level of relentless that was beyond normal. And I've seen similar things happen with other fanbases and they didn't act quite as extreme. Also, they were like that last year after getting a 16-day break due to flouting league safety measures. Also, it's hard to wholly respect a fanbase who are in a huge city and get outnumbered in their own stadium. If we want to pick at things, it's more to say the toxic element of each team's fanbase is toxic in a different way. Honestly, my interaction with Chiefs fans have mostly been positive: knowledgable fans, respectful, grounded. What's happening above is probably symptomatic of some fans of almost all fanbases when a team is regularly dominant for over, say, 5 years--expectations become a bit ridiculous.

I agree to a point, but to paraphrase Tolstoy: each toxic fanbase is toxic in its own way. Pats fans have a different style of toxicity than Chefs fans who have a different style than Ravens fans. For example, I've never seen fans who seem to need to hunt down opposing fans after a win and rub it in their face quite like Titans fans.

Honest question: what's the logic of giving the penalized team 1st & 5? That feels like a reward. There may be something obvious I'm missing, but with the new set of downs, shouldn't they have further to go to make a 1st down. I get that they got the first down before the penalty, but why the "5"? I'd get 1st & 10 or 1st & 15 (at spot of foul, it's first down so 1st & 10 at that point and ref pushes back 5), but 1st & 5 makes no sense to me.

Never mind that Singletary has had as many or more ypc every season than Mack did in his 1000 yard season (when he was running behind one of the best offensive lines ever assembled). But grass, greener, etc.

It's certainly a far cry from the Torrell Troupes and John McCargos....

Well, most non-PFF experts disagree with you, as do his fellow players and coaching (yes, there are a few who agree with you) and at 23, he's been the leader of a defense that has been among the top in the league (except oddly enough when he is injured) for over 3 years. I'd call that a hit in the draft, but you're entitled to your opinion.

So, you're saying that Edmunds is not even a "good" player? That says all I need to know.

Anyone who is a fan of anything after Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys is a country poser and a sellout!

They did and for once gave him a truly high grade (94.1).

Let's not stop there: the Cardinals spun out to the tune of 2-5 after the Hail Murray play, missing the playoffs entirely! (ok, that one DID wear off)...