Utah John

The first guy on the FA list that SHOULD be signed in Harrison Phillips. He's finally turned into the player that he looked like he was going to be, before his knee injury a couple of years ago. He's a beast and we need him back. Neal is a value performer. He's not going to get many big offers, and he can settle in as a role player with the Bills. But a lot of guys filling role player positions on the Bills think they're good enough to be starters (at starter pay) elsewhere. Neal could be one of those guys who gets an offer the Bills don't want to match.

Frazier's defense won a lot more games for the Bills than it lost for the Bills. It was extremely effective against most teams. That #1 ranking is not the nothing many people are implying. The problem in the second Chiefs game was that Frazier tried to use the same tactics he used in the first Chiefs game. Reid and Mahomes knew what to expect and schemed up route trees that attacked it effectively. THAT was Frazier's mistake, as I see it. He had his system in place and he was going to ride that horse all the way to the end. Reid is too smart and creative for Frazier to get away with that. Considering how lousy the Bills D has been in countless years, I'm not hoping for a big change. If Frazier returns, I think he'll learn a lesson from the loss. Also our JV pass rushers will graduate to the varsity, just like Oliver finally has done, and that's going to make any DC look a lot better.

Yup.

The Colts loss to the Ravens was completely down to injuries to several of the Colts' DBs. The Ravens receivers and Lamar Jackson might as well have been playing against air. That's what allowed the Ravens to be able to come back as they did. No team has enough DBs on their active roster to sustain that many injuries and still be effective against an offense as good as the Ravens is, when everyone on the Ravens is healthy. The Colts loss to the Jags was simply inexcusable. I saw that game and it seemed like the Colts, like the Bills, were in some kind of fog when playing in that stadium. Neither the Colts nor the Bills went with what worked well for them. They both seemed to approach the game like the Jags were pushovers and they could just use it as a warmup for other, tougher games. I think both the Bills and Colts will take a clear lesson from their inexplicable losses, and do a better job of never taking an opponent lightly or playing down to an inferior opponent.

The Onion adds a lot to life.

Objective: Get to and win the Super Bowl. To make that happen: Win AFC playoff games against anyone. To make that happen: Get #1 seed. To make that happen: Win 14 or 15 games out of 17. To make that happen: Actually follow the damn process we've been hearing about for years. Every game is a new challenge against a professional outfit. DON'T PLAY DOWN to inferior opponents. Don't let coaches take a week off against weak teams. Insist on analyzing each team's capabilities for potential problems and potential opportunities. Build effective game plans. Don't let players lose focus. Have tougher practices leading up to games that should be easy wins.

It wouldn't be a lateral move. He's the QB coach now with the Bills and a job elsewhere would be as an OC. If he DOES sign on as the new OC, then it would indeed be a lateral move to another team's OC position, but why would he sign here if he wants to go elsewhere?

It's called the salary cap. And there's less cheating of the salary cap than there was of some nuclear weapons treaties -- but there certainly is widespread ingenuity in how a team complies with the rules. He still looks as good as ever.

Look at it this way: Put Josh on the Chiefs and Mahomes with the Bills. Who wins more? I think the Chiefs would do better and the Bills would slip a bit. Give Josh Hill and Kelce and CEH and Hardman, and that O line, and it's a terribly scary thing to contemplate. OTOH I don't think Mahomes could get as much, let alone more, out of the Bills compared to what Josh does.

A lot depends on what McKenzie does. If Daboll leaves and brings McKenzie with him, keeping Beasley becomes more important. Why would McKenzie leave? He loves Daboll and he'll always be pissed about being benched for a tiny thing like fumbling a kickoff without being touched. Beasley has been our Kelce, the guy the QB goes to to move the chains. He's been very valuable for that and did his job very well. But it could be the Bills are thinking that our Kelce should be a tight end, not a slot receiver. It could be they look at Knox and think he's ready for that role. Of course Knox did drop a short pass early in the Chiefs game...

Of course they should retain Oliver, either by tagging or with a new contract. It's Harrison Phillips I'm worried about. He's an UFA and the rest of the league will have noticed his excellent play over the last half of the season. I think he loves Buffalo but money talks. He could leave. But, if he does leave, that creates a problem/opportunity at DT. Star has lost it and should be gone. If they lose Phillips and cut Star, they have a need and the cash for a monster DT to plug the middle.

Ooooh, good thinking. Yes, the Cowboys would be a very attractive landing, and Payton would look very attractive to Jerry Jones.

Taking personalities out of it, that would be a great move for the Bills, on paper. But if Daboll leaves, and if Ken Dorsey doesn't get the OC job, Dorsey will probably leave too, and suddenly Josh's support system is yanked out. Not that Payton couldn't make Josh and the entire offense even more successful, maybe, but it would be a very risky move. Also who knows whether Payton would take a demotion like that, or if McDermott would be happy about it.

This is pretty logical, but you have to look at the AFCN teams too. I think Pittsburgh will have to make a very bold and expensive move to bring in a QB. and it's not clear the Colts are set with Wentz. The Browns keep adding shiny expensive toys sprinkled around their lineup but the downside is lots of guys not good enough to be competitive -- and Mayfield might be out, and the Browns really miss another top receivers. So the Bengals to me are the AFCN favorites going in, and with their schedule, 13-4 doesn't seem out of reach.

We're probably going to lose Daboll AND Frazier. And I'm worried that Daboll will take some of the Bills offensive players with him.

The whole number one thing is based on yards and points. Elite defenses get takeaways and sacks, and the Bills did that at times but they didn't threaten other teams aggressively. Their approach was mostly to limit the damage of enough offensive plays to stop other teams drives. If there was a sack, well great, but they were able to stop a lot of bad offenses enough without sacks that the need for sacks and takeaways was masked. Until we played the Chiefs.

McDermott talking so much about execution on the kickoff with 13 seconds left -- it doesn't seem fair to execute Bass, who's pretty young, but Heath Farwell the special teams coach might want to have his wife start the car each morning.

Just curious what would happen if they're still tied after the extra period. And if they hadn't converted it, the Chiefs would have won it on the last-second field goal. Two-point conversions are HARD. In my opinion, the Bills failed to win the game because they wasted drives in the first half not getting points. There was one three and out where Singletary got a good gain on first down and the Bills couldn't convert. I don't think Allen threw a pass on that "drive" -- I think if the Bills had played the first half like they played the second half, they'd have had a 10 pt lead going into halftime, instead of being lucky it was still tied.

How many Super Bowls would Peyton Manning have won if he hadn't had the bad luck to have Brady emerge when he did? Manning won ONE with the Colts while Brady and the Pats beat Manning and the Colts four or five times in the playoffs. So at least he won one with the Colts (and he was on the field while the Broncos defense won another). It could be Allen turns into another Manning, usually losing to Mahomes and the team around him. The Bills have ONE player they drafted in the first round on offense. That's Allen of course. If they had picked up ONE of the WRs with the speed of Chase or Hill, they could matched the skills and exceeded the skills all across the board last night. We just didn't have anyone who could keep up. And for the first time, losing Tre White made a real difference in a game. We really need him back.

We've heard for years that in a particular game, the winner was going to be the team that had the ball last. Fellas, we just saw one. It was really amazing. We can criticize the Bills D and be right, but KC's defense fell apart worse. At least none of the Bills defenders actually fell down because of a receiver's moves. The Bills act like they're not allowed to draft any offensive players in the first round. Except for Allen, we ALWAYS take defensive players in the first round. The last offensive player other than Allen taken in the first round was Sammy Watkins in 2014. Since then the first round picks have been Shaq Lawson, Tre White, Tremaine Edmunds, Ed Oliver, and Gregory Rousseau.

I can remember one, on a short pass (I think it was to Kelce and Milano broke it up but I'm not sure). But your point is certainly right. Chiefs receivers were open over and over again.

OK, thanks. I am going to give Morse the benefit of the doubt and claim that what he meant was "to beat us you have to put more points on the board."

I can't find that quote. A KC paper's site has the article but I don't have a subscription. What did he say?

The defense seemed completely gassed on the KC drive in OT. It would have been helpful to use a timeout or two to let them gather themselves.

We might be the prettiest bridesmaid ever, but we're still not the ones at the altar.