Utah John

After 10 games each year: 1994 5-5 1993 8-2 1992 8-2 1991 9-1 1990 9-1 I wonder what the seasons where they were 8-2 or better had in common?

I would put it that the Bills played inconsistently against the Colts. Josh had probably his worst game since the Texans game, with the miss to a wide open Kincaid and a bad interception. But he was still the best player on the field in the fourth quarter when the Bills put a stranglehold on the game with a long drive. The defense was just enough better than they had to be, especially in the second half. The absence of Coleman and Cooper really affected things. Samuel appeared briefly and then evaporated. Hollins is a lot better than we thought earlier.

They made that call in the game last year because it was a clear penalty. It was unignorable.

Carolina made a disastrous trade to move up and draft a QB who's been a bust so far, but I think they've already taken their medicine and should be able to rebound in a year or two if they draft and FA well.

The only reason I care at all about Josh getting MVP is to ensure he gets fair consideration for the HOF. Do not laugh or scoff. By the time he retires and waits five years, a lot of other QB play will come along, and what many sportswriters will remember is that the Bills couldn't get past the Chiefs in the playoffs (here's hoping that changes, but it hasn't yet). Josh usually doesn't even make the Pro Bowl team for the AFC, unless it's as an alternate. With the passing years, memories fade, and his superman years here will be old news. People will want to assign him to the Hall of Very Good. He'll be thought of as consistently the second or third or fourth best QB in the AFC, which will not sound impressive to HOF voters. An MVP award, or a Lombardi, is the best guarantee for a really good QB to get into the HOF. It would be a travesty for him not to make it, but there are a lot of great players still outside the HOF and no one knows why. Wait till the Bills play the Chiefs, and the Chiefs need a 2 pt conversion to win. The refs will call penalty after penalty on the Bills until they get the result they want. There is absolutely no reason that both the penalties committed by the Ravens weren't called. After the game, Fitz said he was OK with a no-call on the defensive holding because Burrow wasn't looking that way. Well, gosh, a QB never looks off a defender, and then goes back the other way, right? And the face mask penalty was clear as day.

So there are two ways this can go wrong. Josh can decline to take the easy underneath throws, either because he's bored (no sign of that) or because the defense baits him into thinking a deep receiver is open which would lead Josh to hold the ball and give the defense time to cover the underneath guy. The other way is for some defense coordinator to do his job and take away the underneath throws. They could keep a LB as a spy on the 8 yard completion area. They could run a zone that doesn't get pulled deep by the WRs on vertical routes. The danger for the defense with that approach is that Josh still has his cannon and can hit deep throws whenever the opportunity arises. The question is whether the deep receivers, who have been running their butts off doing those verticals with no catches to show for their effort, are able to get clear on their own. The NFL is not designed to let you keep doing what's working for you. Brady and Allen better have a bunch of Plan B options ready to go. And I'm pretty sure that's the case. Go Bills.

And those Patriots will be fighting for the top draft pick. If the Bills run the table, and the Chiefs lose one more game, the Bills get the one seed. A lot will depend on the Lions game, which should be a doozy. You would think that with better competition in their division, that the Chiefs would have trouble winning every week. But they're very good at figuring out how to beat each opponent they face -- figuring out their advantages, minimizing their own weaknesses. As good as Mahomes is (very), I think it's Reid that really puts the Chiefs in an elite level.

Especially a first from the Bills, who will draft near the bottom of each round (or, wouldn't it be nice, last in each round). Whether the Bills D can stop the run has a lot more to do with the ability of the opposing O line, and not as much to do with the RBs themselves. The Bills really struggle when the opposing O line can consistently make holes in our line.

The refs, as usual. Both of the holding calls against the Bills at the end of the first half were bogus, and they turned a Josh Allen TD run into a long FG that salvaged some points, but geez guys, what's wrong with the refs? Later on whenever Tua was back to pass on slow developing plays, he had massive time to pass and there was holding on every play. The penalty against Poyer was an actual penalty but considering the timing of it I can see how the Dolphins were not happy about it. Josh Allen, as usual. This is 2024 Allen, making smart decisions while working with receivers who seldom get very open. Two INTs on the season both of which were on the receivers (Cooper slipped, and Coleman has got to make that catch). But Allen's talent hasn't subsided -- he's still just as good a passer as he's been, and when he runs he can turn the other team upside down. But he knows this team has a shot at the SB as long as he doesn't get injured. So he's not exposing himself needlessly.

That's basically it. I guess there's someone watching the game in a studio somewhere, someone with referee experience. I don't know if there's just one guy watching all the games, and what happens if he's busy fixing a mistake in one game when another game has a problem. Or if he's hitting the head. But in theory this should cut the number of egregious mistakes that we all see with the benefit of replay. It can be a good thing. Might have some growing pains.

On the NFL website listing all the injuries and departures from games, there's no mention of Coleman. Fingers crossed he's OK.

OK, good results from the defense so far, but the Bills haven't been beating the NFL's elite. They crushed Seattle after Seattle completely blew two opportunities through their own mistakes, not from what the Bills did. (Although I agree that the Bills did stop the Seahawks on some of the plays, prior to their center launching a snap over Geno's head, or their center stepping on Geno's foot. Did anyone get that center's name? We owe him a beer if he plays in Buffalo in the future.) If the Seahawks score on both those possessions, the game goes a different way completely. And the Bills stats look more average. I expect the Bills crowd on Sunday to impede the Dolphins to some extent, and once something bad happens to Miami, you know they'll be looking at each other, saying, here we go again.

I agree with this analysis, but injuries do happen. I think it's paramount for the twos and maybe threes to get some playing time in any games where the Bills are safely ahead. We need, for example, Bishop to be locked and loaded if needed at safety.

And with their win tonight over the fading Texans, the Jets are erecting the season results I was pumping for. All you have to do is name yourself "America's Team" and you get the most coverage of any team in the league.

What we need now is for the Jets to get four or five wins the rest of the season, just enough to stiffen Woody's resolve to keep Rodgers around, and enough to keep the Jets far enough down the draft board that they can't get a really good rookie for next year. It's all about how stiff Woody's resolve is.

The Chiefs also gave up a lot more money that will hurt their cap space next year.

From a Miami Herald article: Tua Tagovailoa could be lost for the entire season instead of making his return last week from the concussion the Buffalo Bills caused. Excuse me? Tua drove his own head into Damar Hamlin's chest. Tua was trying to make an important first down, and he had succeeded when he wasn't satisfied with that, and kept trying to move forward when no advance was possible. The only way the Bills can be considered of causing a concussion for Tua, is for Tua to beat his own head against a concrete wall at the frustration from losing to the Bills so many times.

I think you're right that teams are opting not to go for comp picks, and that makes sense if they signed more FAs than they lost, and so wouldn't be getting comp picks in the first place.

I wonder if we could maybe get a third rounder for Josh? Or is that unrealistic? Probably no team would want him. Maybe as a backup. Screw them all.

The Bills have one of the strongest rosters in the league, even despite some drafts that really weren't good at all. So many high picks wasted over the past few years. And yet the front office continues to assemble complete rosters with no gaping holes anywhere. Anyway my point is that bad drafts keep the Bills from winning SBs, but a string of good drafts will put them into a very strong position. Good being good enough, if maintained year to year.

The only thing holding back some of these rookies is the veterans playing their positions and doing very well. Granger might have been called on to play center on another team, but McGovern seems to have figured out how to make line calls to protect against defensive stunts. Andreesen probably would be playing on other teams. I'm a little surprised Bishop isn't playing more since Hamlin is still the same, too-slow and out of position, player he's always been, but safety in McD's defense is probably the most complex position for a rookie to figure out. Don't forget that deep in McD's genes is a reluctance to play rookies. And who can argue that letting rookies just watch and learn is a mistake, when there's a veteran playing great on the field already?

It sounds like the fix is in, to keep Josh Allen out of the MVP race. What this reminds me of is people looking at weather forecasts for a week or more. Meteorologists know that weather models have almost no skill beyond about 5 days, but weather sites routinely publish forecasts out to 10 days. I guess people figure that what they see on their phone must be right (how else to explain the current political situation?) even if anyone who knows anything would tell you that it's worthless. So PFF giving grades to players is like a weather app telling you it won't rain a week from this Friday. If you decide based on that to schedule a picnic a week from Friday, or to bring in a FA football player based on PFF, you're making a decision based on nothing reliable.

The Patriots are having a fire sale, disposing of reasonably good assets at bargain prices. The Chiefs just scored a good pass rusher for a sixth round pick. I don't know the Patriots' roster but I wonder if there's anyone left that would be an upgrade over anyone currently on the Bills. Cultural issues come into play. The Bills have a great, winning culture and anyone left on the Patriots probably has had any will to win beaten out of them. Maybe the Bills don't want anyone like that in the locker room. The fact that the Pats just beat the Jets says more about the pathetic Jets than it does about the Pats. What it really says about the Pats is that they can't even lose correctly.

The Giants can't be competitive with Daniel Jones at QB. They should have given up on him years ago and moved on to a new option. Fortunately their season will end with a high draft pick and they can have a chance at a decent player. That guy, and the new HC and GM, will have some good talent but a lot of deadwood on their roster. Every time I see Jones play I'm even more thankful we have Allen. You can't have everything. Would you rather have Allen plus Rousseau, or Wilson plus Watt? In other words, a normal year.

The Chiefs are going all-in to try for the unprecedented threepeat. Right now I think any team in the NFCN except probably the Bears could beat them, but in the AFC at least UFN the Chiefs are the team to beat. The Chiefs are giving up quite a few future draft picks to get players who won't help much going forward, or even be on the team at all. They'll pay for that over the next two years, while the Bills continue to reach another peak. Sometime between 2024, 2025, and 2026, it's all going to come together for the Bills. (Hey, maybe all three years, right? Maybe it's the Bills who get the threepeat.)