hondo in seattle

Despite the stat lines, I do think Allen outplayed Maye yesterday mostly because Allen made plays when he had to and Maye didn't. But, as a Bills fan, I do worry about Maye's potential. And I worry about your coaching staff. Vrabel came across as whiny after the loss yesterday. Nonetheless, he's been the architect of a remarkable turnaround. And McDaniels seems to be good for Maye and your offense. Already this season, you guys are likely to take the AFCE crown away from us. And if Maye takes another leap forward next season, that'll spell trouble for us. I liked it better when the AFCE was all about the Bills and no one else. You had your 18, 19 years of AFCE dominance. Let us have ours! I hate to wish ill on anyone, but I do hope that Maye does NOT take another step forward next year. And I hope Vrabel's honeymoon with the players ends, and McDaniels shockingly gets another HC opportunity. Minus that, the AFCE looks to be interesting for years to come.

My word choice may have been poor. I certainly didn't mean to say we don't have any good players besides Allen. We have a mix of good, mediocre, and bad players outside Allen. In other words, our non-QB roster is a lot like other teams and certainly worse than some. Beane hit a homerun with Allen and that can't be ignored. But if I ignore it anyway just as an exercise, he hasn't been an elite GM - the kind that builds SB rosters.

I share your concerns for many of the same reasons. Brady puts up a lot of points. On the other hand, with Josh under center, we should have a better downfield passing game even with our current wideouts. My solution would be to add a good passing game coordinator or consultant to the staff next year to help scheme a better passing game. And give Brady better weapons for Josh, of course.

We do have a guy - a former ref as a matter of fact. And he didn't scream in Sean's ear. Apparently, it wasn't obvious to him either. If I was Sean, I'd trust the ex-ref too.

Wow: King of Whine right there. The problem for a coach to talk like that is he's telling his team that they lost because of bad refereeing. That's a horrible message. The message needs strong, clear, and passionate: "We lost because we didn't play well enough." As long as you put the problem 'out there' somewhere (refs, weather, whatever), it's not solvable. When you put the problem on your own shoulders, you can fix it. Prepare better. Try harder. Execute better.

Allen is a freak of nature, no doubt. But didn't you see our injury-ridden defense step up in the second half? You didn't see a team that 'didn't blink' (to use Knox's expression) when things went bad? You didn't see Brady start calling good plays? When a pickpocket walks down the street, all he sees is pockets. When a horny hetero guy walks down a street, all he sees are girls. When a McD hater watches a Bills game, all he sees is Allen. I love Allen and think he probably deserves another MVP award. But I think McD is also contributing to our wins. Outside of Allen, this isn't a good roster.

A lot of people seem to operate from that simplistic paradigm. And there's no way to argue against it because every fact can be made to fit into that model of the world if you do enough mental gymnastics. I prefer a more nuanced approach. I think Josh deserves tremendous credit for our victories - and some of the blame for our losses. He's not always the most accurate QB on the field, and his decision-making is sometimes suspect. Overall, however, he's superman as Gruden and others attest. And McD, like any coach, has strengths and weaknesses. He's not always the best at game management and I question his coordinator choices. But he's a solid, though not brilliant, defensive mind. His defensive strength might be at showing a presnap look that's different than what we're actually running. But that's more likely to confuse young QBs than well-coached, experienced QBs like Mahomes and Burrow as we've found out in the playoffs. As a HC, he's good at instilling teamwork, brotherhood, communication, accountability, and a never-quit attitude. It wasn't luck or coincidence that McD ended the drought - before Allen. He's a good coach who needs a better roster than the one Beane's been giving him if we're going to win a Lombardi.

It's hard to project how good Maye will become. He particularly throws a nice deep ball, but he can make all the throws. But can he make them with enough consistency? Can he make improbable plays when his team needs him most? Yesterday, he couldn't but a bad half is too small a slice of time to be predictive. Maye may not have a lot of talent on the outside, but he does have a good OC. McDaniels is better at coordinating a downfield passing game than Joe Brady, even if that wasn't in evidence in the second half of yesterday's game.

This has been a revelation to me... I didn't think Davis had the speed, decisiveness, or explosiveness to be a good returner. I'm glad to have been very, very wrong.

Assuming all our receivers are healthy, which is admittedly an asinine assumption that has never come close to happening all year, I'd probably go with Palmer, Cooks, and Shakir as the starting three. And then maybe Gabe (for blocking and scramble drills), Hardman (for speed), and Shavers (blocking, size, effort). Keon would be demoted to the PS. But other than Shakir, there are no locks on the 53, which is a weird situation for an NFL contender to be in.

McDermott explained why there was no challenge: the Bills never got a replay before the Patriots snapped the next play. But let’s zoom out for a moment. When I was a kid visiting the Louvre, I overheard someone say every brushstroke on a painting was perfect. I got close, studied it, and told my mom I disagreed. She told me to step back, take in the whole canvas, and then give my opinion. So let’s stand back here. Vrabel has the stronger roster and one of the best offensive coordinators in the league. The Patriots were at home, playing their most meaningful game since Brady left. And yet McDermott and the Bills walked out with the win. You can nitpick individual brushstrokes if you want, but taken as a whole, that game was a masterpiece — and a credit to McDermott’s coaching.

Just executed the basics and went with what works. So far this season... Kyle Williams jersey... 0-1 Kelly jersey... 0-1 Allen jersey... 10-2 Dogs may have some kind of special gridiron juju. All season long, I've ignored my husky during football games. But against Cinci, I made her sit with me for the 4th quarter and look what happened!

@Sierra Foothills, I agree with your takes about 99% of the time. But I actually like the come-in-peace fans of other teams visiting us on OBD. I like hearing their perspective on things.

I don't know. Josh gets a lot of love from the national media.

Henderson's run was supposed to be stopped at the Line of Scrimmage. If that had happened, my prediction would have been perfect. Clairvoyance is a tricky thing. Congrats to @without a drought!