Utah John

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.

Wait a few minutes. It will kick in.

Neither of the winning teams on Saturday are in Buffalo's class. Not even close. If the Bills can get past KC, they should open as 7 point favorites against the Bengals.

In last summer's training camp, the Bills had so many NFL-caliber receivers that they had to simply cut guys who were good enough to start on other teams. Depending on what happens with Emanuel Sanders, the Bills MIGHT be in the market for a WR3. I think Gabriel Davis is ready to be WR2.

The first problem for the Cowboys is that they think they have the best QB, the best running back, and the best receivers. They don't. They have very good players but they pay them as if they were the best players at their positions. The second problem for the Cowboys is hiring a great coach. But no great coach is willing to put up with Jerry Jones being Jerry Jones. I will always root against any team that has the nerve to call itself "America's Team."

I love Melbourne. I've been there twice. On one occasion I actually made a proper right hand turn in Melbourne traffic, but it was more blind luck than skill. Could you perhaps explain the procedure for turning right in Melbourne? (For other readers, this is a real thing. There's a strange traffic rule there, or at least there was the last time I was there which was about 15 years ago.) Tennis players are real athletes. The women's game seems to reward power, leading to leading women players with thick, strong bodies like Serena Williams. The men's game is really different, where the men have to get power without a lot of bulk so they can be so quick.

Sure there are games where the coaches are out-guessed by the other team's coaches. It happens. But there are also games where Josh is just ... off. Not accurate or smart. He isn't always a combination of Superman and Captain America. Sometimes he's just a QB who misses an easy completion on a short out, killing a drive. It happens. Coaches and QBs and all the other players are human beings who sometimes make mistakes.

That's a great line but it's not the whole story. The biggest change on offense for the Bills has been the O line getting it done and the running game shockingly getting better right after the O line got sorted -- who'd have expected THAT? Now the play-action plays Josh uses so much are really deadly. IMO the bigger change of the two offenses has been the Bills getting the O line and running game going. The Chiefs O line got miraculously turned around this year with good draft picks and Thuney as a FA, but they were already playing well when the teams met in October. So the only thing new for the Chiefs has been the route trees. I feel confident Frazier and company are well aware of what the Chiefs are doing, and the Bills have the great overall D and great pass D to make the necessary adjustments. There are changes on D also, but they're about a wash. The Chiefs now have Ingram rushing the passer and Chris Jones in the interior, where he's better. The thing is neither of them has been putting up exciting stats. Right now their D line just looks like a good one, not an outstanding one. The Bills' D change is they've figured out how to defend against teams that go heavy and try to pound the run game. However that doesn't seem to be in the cards for this week's game, unless KC is ready to completely revamp their offense.

I'm puzzled by the fact that Hussey and his crew will do this game. Last week's Raiders-Bengals game was refereed by a crew led by Jerome Bogler but made up partly of Hussey's regular crew. The announcer said this crew (which screwed up with the false whistle on the pass from Burrow to a WR in the end zone) had not worked together before, but that it was made up of the best-graded members of other crews, plus Bogler. Maybe Bogler got put on the shelf for the playoffs after the debacle in Cincinnati, and they brought back Hussey because they needed a replacement. If so that might mean it's mostly the hybrid crew again (except for the guy who blew the erroneous whistle) but with Hussey replacing Bogler. If all this is so, then maybe the refs responsible for watching for DH and DPI won't be the same members of Hussey's crew that have the tendency to let them play and not call penalties. What a thing to be worried about. As someone else posted, you shouldn't have to take into account who the refs are when you put together your game plan.

Fine. The Bills play the Chiefs every year, it seems. Josh will get his chance.

When Tre White went down a lot of us were worried that the entire D might collapse. Far from it. Instead they've been playing at a higher level, with team defense suffocating opponents. Of course they'd be even better with White back but Frazier really has them working together brilliantly, so NO ONE has been able to light them up. Of course the Chiefs have the previous game this year to figure out what Frazier did to them last time, but that was months ago and Frazier hasn't been sitting in his office wasting time. He's been figuring out more moves to counter their countermoves. The Chiefs have two D linemen back, but only CEH on offense who wasn't there last time. The Bills were built to beat the Chiefs. Keep that in mind. NO ONE has had an effective passing game against them. Best case scenario, the Bills and Bengals both win this weekend, and the Bills win the AFCC at home the following weekend, shutting down the Bengals passing game.

The jail situation won't keep him out of Sunday's game, but if he gets covid while in jail and then shares it with his teammates, that would be soooo sad.

If you can punt and pin their offense back, and you trust your defense to get a three and out, you're counting on getting the ball back where you kicked it from, but now you'll have a first down. So a lot depends on how your own team is playing.

The Bills offense was vanilla-flavored vanilla against the Jets and Falcons. Daboll wasn't showing anything he didn't have to, and frankly it didn't look like the Bills were concentrating all that hard. They knew they could win comfortably, and that's exactly what they did. A lot of secrets kept under wraps were unwrapped against NE. I hope Daboll has more of them ready for delivery.

Boettger wasn't playing badly before he got hurt, but his injury forced the coaches to choose between Ford or Feliciano or Bates. They chose wisely. The other part of the improvement was getting Williams out of the RT position, where he was not playing anywhere near as well as he did last year. Putting Brown in as RT and moving Williams to RG made both positions better. The Bills have depth on the O line but not good depth. One injury to any of the starters and things can go south quickly.

Bad idea. They'd have to put up a brick wall so nothing could get by. Most of the team wasn't even born when Parcells/Belichick beat that earlier team.