Utah John

If there's one guy out there I'd like to consider, it's Wink Martindale, who resigned as DC of the NJ Giants. Not only is he an outstanding DC, he quit on Daboll, so McD might want Martindale just to piss off Daboll, who has not seen eye to eye with McD for some time.

They're not nuts, they're just greedy.

About the second half last night...did Miami put out a missing persons report on Achane after halftime? He was tearing it up in the first half, and the Dolphins had the lead so they could have kept on running. Did McDaniel outsmart himself by moving away from the run?

And I think Stroud does. That kid's got an ARM. How many other QBs could make the run for a first down in the 4th quarter, that Josh did last night? NONE. How many would even try? Same answer.

Well, there have been Native Americans living (and dying) here for thousands of years, way before they were called Native Americans, and so there are probably a lot of burial grounds, most of which are totally forgotten. So odds are, you're right. Also not much risk of Buffalo being under water in 20 years. Also I'm pretty sure it's easier to get homeowner's insurance in Buffalo than anywhere in Florida.

In the summer of 2022 we were driving through Chiefs country in Missouri and I stopped for gas. Had my Bills hat on of course. The other guy at the pump had on a Chiefs hat and we had a really nice chat. He told me that Hill, who had just been traded to Miami, was a royal pain on the Chiefs and was well gone from their point of view. I always wondered if this was just sour grapes. I think the answer is that the Chiefs really miss Hill on the field, and the Dolphins are happy to have him on the field but who knows what he's like in the locker room. I didn't see any of the Dolphins players who watched Hill do his flip acting surprised or upset. This apparently was SOP for Hill, and they're just used to it.

Criticism of Tua for not being Josh seems a little unfair. He's a very good Tua, really as Tuas go. He's in a system where he has a job to do, and he does it well, against weaker competition that can't figure out the timing of his offense. The reason he loses against winning teams is that the winning teams have better Ds and better DCs, and they're on to him. In contrast to Tua Josh IS the system. Ever since Dorsey left and the Bills figured they might as well go ahead and use their best player, Josh has been Josh. Sometimes great, sometimes pretty bad (New England game), and sometimes both. Restraining him does not work. You know the expression, "you pay your quarter and you take your chance"? We've paid our quarter and we're not switching now.

Suggestion: Sneak onto the Miami board and post that, encouraging Miami to hold on to their very special Special Teams coach. I'm really hoping it works out that Cleveland goes into Baltimore and beats the Ravens, and uses up all their mojo doing it, before coming to Buffalo for the AFCCG.

And yet that 85 team ... Some really cynical Bills fan should sneak onto the Miami board and defend Crossman. Keeping him is subtraction by standing still.

I can't imagine so many Miami fans following their team to Buffalo for a similar game. Of course a lot of the Buffalo fans were also there for a mid-winter weather break, but how was it possible for so many of them to get tickets?

I just don't think the defender would be able to catch up to Kincaid if the pass was out in front where it belongs. Kincaid might not get very far before being tackled, but I think it would be complete.

Taylor is much smarter, Fields is much faster. Taylor had several shots at showing teams he could be The Guy, and never managed it. Fields was a bust the first couple of years but did well enough this year to tease the Bears. I have no idea what the Bears will do. They could trade Fields and draft Caleb Williams, which will keep them with a starting QB on rookie pay a few years longer but force a rising team to put up with rookie mistakes. I think they'll keep their money on Fields and let it ride. Actually it's much worse in Miami. We never have anyone calling to cut or trade Josh Allen, or replace him with a flaky maybe-talent like Fields. The Bills are built on D to stop passing attacks like Miami's, and rushing attacks as well. Miami is not built to stop the Bills.

Well, the guy tracking Kincaid is downfield so if Josh leads Kincaid he catches it and gets the first down before being tackled. If Josh throws a flat pass, yep, it's 6 going the other way. My money is on Josh making the right pass. But who knows, maybe Kincaid drops the pass and the Bills punt and the Dolphins get it at the 20. We're better off with the INT. This was the second (maybe there were more) play this year where a Josh 3rd down INT turned into something better than a punt on 4th down.

Half a second more and Josh sees that Davis is breaking to the middle of the field, and it's an easy TD. That half second was not there because Cook missed his block.

Suppose the Miami DB had an incentive in his contract that he got a $XXX bonus for Y interceptions, and he had Y-1 going into the game. Even if not, these guys are rewarded for INTs far more than heads-up plays. The INT goes into his lifetime stats, the heads-up play gets a pat on the helmet.

The biggest mistake for the Pats was in sticking with their lousy GM (Bill Belichick), who let the roster collapse. A competent GM plus HC Belichick would likely still have the Pats winning.

Those are good points but the Commanders still have the Snyder Stink stuck to them. It will take a while for the bad mojo culture to go away. They have had some really good players they disposed of (Sweat, Young) and they've let so many fine coaches go somewhere else to thrive. It took lightning striking for the Bills to get out of the same pit, and that was largely due to a few high-character players still on the team (Kyle Williams, Lorax) whom the McBeane team turned to, to revamp the culture as well as the personnel. Plus Josh of course. I think the Commanders are stuck with too many holes to fix at once and no identity to rally around.

That would be a shame. Their interim coach turned that team around. Really the moral of the story is that you don't want to be the HC of a team that doesn't have a good QB. You can't win otherwise, and if you don't win you're out.

I've been saying most of the season that Davis is an offensive line player allowed to be downfield. He's better at blocking than anything else he's asked to do. Catching passes is just a bonus.

OK, I'm as happy as could be about the win and the AFCE and the 2 seed. The team is really good. But compared to the last few years, where the pressure was on all season long to compete for a high seed, and possibly the 1 seed, to get home playoff games, this season seems like a fluke. The Bills just floundered during the middle third of the season, playing really badly. OK, they turned it on and beat some really good teams in the last third of the season, and ended up pretty much where they've been the past couple of years, but this feels really different. Maybe it's because except for the Ravens all the other AFC teams didn't look quite as strong, particularly KC. I'm certainly not complaining, just observing. What this means going forward, as the 2 seed, is that the Bills should have two home games and win them both, beating Pittsburgh without Watt, and then probably KC without its mojo (Miami is in shock and will sleepwalk through a sad loss in cold KC, boo-hoo). If Cleveland's defense can play to potential, they could take down the Ravens, and then Cleveland comes to Buffalo for the AFC. Who could have seen this coming after the Bills lost to the Broncos in the most inglorious way possible?

If the Bills could execute a simple screen pass to a RB, well then they wouldn't be the Bills, but boy it sure would help. The opportunities are there every game.

Have you seen the movie Seabiscuit where there's a big match between Seabiscuit and a huge powerful race horse? (War Admiral was his name, I think.) Spoiler alert: Seabiscuit wins. The way the little team behind Seabiscuit set it up, Seabiscuit would take the early lead and then let the other horse catch up and pass him, but then Seabiscuit would catch back up and pass the big horse, ripping his heart out and destroying his will. That's what the Bills do to the Dolphins.

Just wanted to point out a surprisingly key play that many people probably overlook: Dane Jackson's PI against Tyreek Hill. That was a legitimate penalty, no argument about that, but the point is that Jackson kept Hill from breaking clear into the middle in full stride after catching an accurate pass from Tua that got exactly where Hill would have been. Without that PI, Hill scores, and the game plays out differently. We don't talk much in football about taking a good penalty, like we do in hockey, but this is an instance where a foul by Jackson really saved the day.

Wilkins IS very good but pretty much every team the Bills will face the rest of the postseason has a very good interior D lineman. Some have outstanding players and some have multiple guys. So I don't think overlooking a problem for that reason is the solution. But nor do i think benching him is the solution either. The Bills need to recognize there's a problem and work in blocking schemes that let him get through the rest of the year while keeping the Bills moving ahead. I think the O line as a whole has been hitting a wall. The big holes are coming fewer and further between, and the pass rush is getting closer to Allen. Are they worn out or are opposing defenses being crafted to attack when the league has seen the Bills doing? Probably some of both. Again the solution is not new personnel but more creative coaching, so our guys aren't sitting ducks when attacked by creative DCs from other teams.

Line up with 11 men on the Denver FG try, and we're already in the playoffs. Not making the playoffs would be just the football gods shaking their heads at the NYJ, NE, and Denver losses.