Utah John

The key to this game was the two ridiculous penalties on the Texans defense, for breathing too loudly near Mahomes. The Texans are finding out what the Bills know, every day is Saint Patrick's Day if the Chiefs are playing.

Milano. He's a rock in the middle of the field. He can cover the two TEs (both very good) as well as take on blockers and stop Henry.

Amazingly, the Bills have almost no players getting post season honors. That must stick in their craw a bit. Other than Josh, none of the skill players on offense get enough yards to get attention, and on defense, none except Taron Johnson get noticed -- and Johnson's viewed as only the third best nickel back in the AFC. I hope this situation gives the players more motivation, and doesn't discourage anyone. As for the O line, I don't understand how a unit that gave up only 14 sacks over the year, couldn't have at least one player who graded out well enough for all-pro. Dawkins gets more attention than the others, because besides being a great player he's such an extrovert and entertaining. The other guys just go about their business. How many times can we watch Brown simply stoning a rusher on his side, completely shutting him out for five or six seconds, before the sportswriters start to notice?

The McGovern shift was a risk, we thought. Dallas had tried him at center and it didn't work out. For whatever reason (scheme, coaching, who knows) it's worked beautifully. Once again, we're amazed that Beane knows more than we do. I would love Kromer to stay, and I hope the Bills will do what's necessary to keep him. If Brady gets a HC opportunity, and it's not a loser's cesspool (e.g., Jets) he will take it. Any coordinator would. The Bills offense is outstanding this year so Brady's stock is high. A couple of injuries or fluke plays next year, and it might not be so rosy. AFC teams will adjust to the Bills using an extra O lineman, both with personnel and coaching, and again the offense might have to overcome more next year. Brady absolutely could not be faulted for taking the chance if he gets an offer.

Can't really compare lines from different eras because the lines are built for the needs of that time. Today's O line is certainly better than any we've had since the SB years. The first of the SB years probably had the best O line of the four because after that the Colts stole* House Ballard away, and things weren't quite the same afterwards. Probably the best Bills O line for their specific time was the Electric Company that Saban built to help OJ. Back then it was not unusual for a QB to attempt 12-15 passes per game, so pass blocking wasn't the key as it is now. The Electric Company (turned on the Juice, get it?) was huge and dominant, and OJ's great success in 1973 and 1975 was definitely helped by that line. * For those who don't remember, the Colts signed Ballard away by promising him he'd be the highest paid player on the team. The Bills couldn't match that open-ended commitment, not with Kelly, Smith, Thomas, Reed etc on the roster. The Colts refused to specify a dollar figure for the Bills to match, and the league let them get away with it. Soon after, the league woke up and banned offers like that. That's a valid concern, but Kromer has had a full season now to coach them up, and to work with Brady and Allen at setting protections. Also the Ravens have put a full season of their schemes on tape for the Bills to figure things out.

Gotcha Yeah, that's REALLY northern California. For some reason people call the Bay Area northern California when it's really the central part of the state.

Agree with everything here. Insurance companies need to make money. When conditions in a particular place are likely to cause losses there, the insurance companies can either pull out of the area, request to be allowed to raise rates to cover their exposure, or spread the risk among all their customers which they do anyway. All of us with homeowners insurance from a major national company are paying more because of hurricane and fire losses. (Earthquakes and floods might cost us, too, depending on state regulator decisions.) I've been a USAA member for over 40 years. Every year USAA sends out a bonus check around Christmas, and it used to be upwards of $2000. After the hurricanes in Florida the bonuses dropped to a few hundred. I'm not blaming USAA which is a very well managed and high-value company. Just saying, it's not just the people in the high risk areas that pay. We all do. So I'm completely in favor of letting insurance companies raise rates in those high risk areas. You want sunshine in Florida or southern California? Then you should accept the risks of living there. Is there some high risk associated with northern California? I lived there for 10 years altogether, and the only notable risk was earthquakes, which are covered by special policies.

The team in black and white stripes.

We lived in Fairbanks, in the interior of Alaska, for four years. Every summer, was fire season, and the area consumed by fires was enormous, many times the area in southern California that's burning now. Even though the fires were miles away, the smoke was thick everywhere.

The closest NFL stadium would be in Las Vegas, and since the Raiders aren't using it... Has San Diego kept up its stadium? As I recall a big reason for the Chargers to move back to LA (where they started in 1960) was the poor stadium in San Diego. The stadium in Las Vegas is certainly in good shape and should be available.

Good points. The Bills have been extremely lucky over the past two years to have had so few injuries on the O line. But they haven't been just hoping that continues. They had enough quality backups to field an entirely different O line against the Pats, and it looked pretty good considering all of them were playing next to second-stringers. Put any of those reserves into an opening on the starting five, and that guy would look even better. (Although I'm very content to feel good about this theory without finding out if I'm right.)

I can't imagine Stafford and Nacua both playing out of their minds outstanding football again, the way they did when the Rams beat the Bills.

The number of O linemen the Bills went through after the SB teams ended to finally get it right, is exceeded only by the number of QBs they went through between Kelly and Allen. The hard part is knowing when the guy you've got is just not going to work out, so you dump him at the right time, not too soon as they did with Wyatt Teller, and not too late as they did with Cody Ford. It was clear early on that Ford just wasn't good enough with his footwork to play the way the Bills wanted, but they took at least a year and maybe two, to finally cut bait. Maybe Ford got better. Maybe he put in the work and got quicker and more agile, or maybe the Bengals don't really ask their guards to be athletic. But look, this guy tried hard to make it work with the Bills. He was a good teammate and for all I've ever heard, a good all-around person. I wish him well.

And now Kevin Zeitler, a starter on their O line, came out, apparently with a hammie. Might be OK since they have a week off.

Well, they tried to. Does that count?

Watching the look on Jefferson's face says it all. He was in shock and looked small sitting on the bench. I think most of us admire Detroit's style and abilities, and except for the game against the Bills we wanted to see them succeed. I'm happy watching them rout the Vikings.

Minnesota needs to be out in the cold. They're melting down as we watch.

Well, turned out this Mayo has a one year expiration date. Winning this game, by only a touchdown, against the Bills' backups, shockingly didn't save his job.

Dorsey's biggest problem with the Bills was Diggs, and the perceived need to keep Diggs happy. Once that got fixed by Brady, the entire Bills office and Josh Allen in particular exploded in capability and production. The other thing working in Brady's advantage is Kromer, making the O line into a bulging beastly thing. Plus Spencer Brown finally figured it all out and became a dominant force. Should Dorsey have ignored Diggs earlier? That would have taken a lot more cojones than Dorsey ever showed. At the point Dorsey was fired, the Bills season was wallowing in mediocrity, and I think McD figured they had nothing to lose by moving away from leaning on Diggs.

I hope you're right that Cooper sticks around with a team-friendly deal. It could happen. Keep in mind that he and his family arrived in Buffalo at the absolute worst time, weather-wise. Cold and wet, cold and snowy, gray skies. Natives shrug that off but newcomers see only that, and at some point if not already it's going to get to him and his family. The gorgeous Buffalo summers are just a rumor to them. I hope those concerns don't influence his decisions.

The biggest advantage to having a crew of quite good but not elite receivers is that when one or two of them are out with injuries, there isn't a noticeable decrease in production. They don't all play the same way or have the same strengths but Brady always has a way to succeed with whoever is available. Also, except for Cooper who probably will go chase a bigger contract elsewhere, all the receivers make modest salaries so the Bills can afford to keep them all.

I also would like to see SVPG get a good look. At the start of this year when many were worried that McGovern couldn't do a good job at center, I thought we'd see SVPG moving into the starting lineup mid-season. Well, McGovern shut that down, and David Edwards turned out to be starter-quality too. So I am not hoping to see SVPG in the starting lineup and move McGovern back to LG. The Bills O line is the best we've had in decades and I don't want to mess around with it. It will be good to know whether SVPG is the guy we want as McGovern's backup. Just wondering what the plan is at QB. Josh starts then sits, and Trubisky takes over. Are the Bills calling up a QB from the practice squad to be Trubisky's backup? If Trubisky is hurt, does Josh have to go back in the game? If he does I hope the Bills just hand it off to RBs on all three downs, then punt, every possession. This is a game that Pats fans want to lose, and Bills fans don't care about, but that players on both sides want to win because that's what they do.

The "difference makers" get paid a ton more than the guys "the system" puts out across the board. Nick Bosa is on a five year, $175,000,000 contract with most of that guaranteed. Yeah, when he's healthy, he's better than anyone the Bills have. But the dollars it would take to have someone like Bosa would mean less capability at other positions. We now have really good depth at all offensive positions, and only really need to rebuild starters and depth in the defensive backfield. Teams with a couple of difference makers have serious holes at other positions, and when the difference maker is injured, the entire team feels the impact.

An O line is a unit of five men, and its success depends on all five working together. The Bills O line doesn't have any players who are best in the league at their position, but they have an extremely strong combined unit. And, all the backups have the opportunity to learn from the starters, and be ready to step in and be another link in the chain. Kromer gets and deserves a lot of credit, but so do Beane and McDermott, for finding and keeping the five guys who work together the best. It's taken years to get here. Think of all the players who've cycled through the Bills, and then been discarded before going on to good contracts elsewhere. There must be a dozen former Bills starting on O lines around the league. The only bad miss was trading away Wyatt Teller before the Bills realized his real potential. You can tell McBeane are happy with the current roster by the lack of changes over the past two years. They've got a very strong O line and have the luxury of grooming replacements. Would you take Penei Sewell (and his contract) over Spencer Brown, and his contract? Sewell might be a little better but I have no complaints at all about Brown, and the extra dollars that would be needed to have Sewell would detract from somewhere else. The Bills have it figured out. PFF says the Bills have the third best O line in the NFL. I can live with that.