hondo in seattle

I think a little differently. I imagine that I'm a young man with a young man's hormones. There's a contest to win a dance with a angelically beautiful young lady. The first part of the contest is skill based. The 14 best competitors win a ticket to the dance hall. But once at the dance hall, the contest become a combination of skill and luck, giving every competitor a chance. Earning a bye is the best alternative: home field advantage, one week of rest to get healthy, one fewer 50-50 game. But whatever seed we are, I'm grateful to Beane, McD, and Josh for getting us a ticket to the dance.

I'm happy to find I'm not embarrassed by my previously posted opinion. That's not always the case!

Maybe. But college coaches need to be good recruiters. It doesn't seem like Belichick would enjoy that part of the role - or be particularly good at it given his age and dry personality.

I'll feel the stars are aligned when: 1. We win home field advantage. 2. We take the field for our first playoff game and there are no consequential names on the injury report and no one on IR. That would be a beautiful thing.

Sad but true. If you stack up all of Josh's accomplishments, it's amazing he hasn't won yet. The MVP should go to the guy who helps his team the most. Josh is there. The turnover stats - while I don't like them - are far overblown. What he's done for the team far, far outweighs the turnovers. Regardless of what Saquon does, I think Josh should win MVP just because he was wrongly overlooked in previous years.

I just wrote a long post on why I'm a big McD supporter. But you're #1 is spot on. McD has an iffy track record with coordinators and anyone who wanted to attack him on those grounds would have gotten weak resistance from me. If you're a defensive head coach, it's imperative you find a good OC. Just as it was imperative for Reid, an offensive guru, to find a good DC. Reid did. Meanwhile, two of McD's OCs failed and were fired. One did reasonably well but left for greener pastures. For me, this was McD's Achilles heel. I wasn't convinced about Brady at first. For a while I thought "Everyone eats" was just a nice way to spin "No one eats." But what Brady's been accomplishing lately with this motley group of wideouts has been impressive. I don't think our current roster is elite though Allen by himself makes it competitive. But this might be the HC/DC/OC combo that finally finally gets us another SB ticket.

I've remained a McDermott supporter from early on. This year's success doesn't especially surprise me nor does it change my view of McD. Before the season began, I projected another AFCE title mostly because of my faith in two people: McD and Josh. I don't think Beane has ever provided McD with the very best roster in the league so I can't blame McD for not winning a Lombardi. Because we've been winning a lot, I believe some fans overrate our roster which leads them to underrate our coaching staff. I think we've had the bad luck to peak at a time during the KC dynasty run by super talented trio of Reid, Spags, and Mahomes. I think we've also had the bad luck to enter the playoffs the past two years with more injuries to key players than other teams. McD has only coached 11 playoff games. No scientist or statistician would draw a conclusion from such a small dataset. Especially in a field where luck, injuries, subjective referee calls, etc, play a large role. A statistical viable sample needs at least 30 results. McD's regular season record (83-43) is statistically significant. And it's top twenty all time.

Dunne said that the ex players and coaches he talked to (25 in total) were "universally exasperated and saddened for those still in Western New York." Hmm. I don't need their empathy. We're doing just fine. Last I heard, Dunne still stands by his article. But it was like interviewing 25 Hamas officials about the Israeli government and claiming it's fair and balanced reporting. Dunne's criticisms of McD's outmoded coaching style is funny. Most NFL fans in the NFL would love a "relic" who could produce 5 consecutive division championships and a current 10-2 record. I'd like Dunne a lot more if he manned up and admit he was wrong. Instead, he'll probably claim that he helped transform McD into a better leader.

If he won't, I will.

True. Most teams have 4 safeties on their active roster. Once Hyde gets acclimated, I expected the Bills to start doing the same. And I think he'll get some reps. But I don't think he'll start unless Hamlin or Rapp get injured. If he does end up starting without anyone being injured, it means he's signficantly outplaying Hamlin and/or Rapp in practice and will therefore be a game day upgrade. Hyde won't be given anything he doesn't earn and upgrading the starting lineup is never a bad thing. Fitz has said the Lions and Bills have the best camaraderie in the league. Lots of Bills players talk about how tight they are. I doubt that Hyde's position on the team will be divisive. This is a team where players trust their coaches, believe in each other, and put the team first. And Hyde seems to be respected and well-liked.

Even with a franchise QB, sustained excellence is hard to achieve in the NFL. Few coaches do it. While each of them is imperfect in their own way, we're lucky that McD, Beane, and Josh all joined the Bills roughly at the same time. I'm 65. When I'm 95, I'll probably reminisce to my bored grandkids, "Back in the 2020s, now that was the Golden Era of the Bills, when Sean McDermott was the coach and Josh Allen the quarterback. Let me tell you..."

Considering (1) we only have 3 true safeties, and (2) Hyde was only signed to the practice squad, I'm not sure how anyone can see this as anything but a good thing. I'm glad to have him, except he'll contribute on the practice field and meeting room, and hope he gets his ring. I also hope we don't have to use him if that means someone else got injured. On the other hand, if we do have an injury at safety, I'm glad we'll have Hyde as a backup rather than some guy off the street. McD runs difficult concepts in his secondary that are hard to learn. Hyde may not be in his athletic prime but he's not likely to commit mental errors which can be killers.

Our D is limiting opponents to 6.6 yards per pass attempt - 3rd best in the NFL. It doesn't seem like anyone in our secondary is out of position very often.

This might be one of the reasons we won. The 49ers probably saw the snow as a challenge - a problem. The difficulty & discomfort weighed on them psychologically. Meanwhile, the Bills had fun.

Statistically, this is not the best team of the Allen era. And just looking at the roster, I believe the stats. But I love the teamwork and camaraderie. Most of all, I love how we're deep into the season and reasonably healthy. Injuries - the lack of them - may be the thing that distinguishes this team going forward into the playoffs.

I think he was yelling "no" in disbelief and he was very effusive in his praise of Josh during the game. In any case, I don't really care about Collinsworth. He has some flaws like all humans and some bad takes like all announcers. But I don't expect any national announcer to know the Bills as well as we do. The only thing that impacts my state of mind when watching a Bills game on TV is the state of the play on the field, not the yapping from the box.

My Filipino wife didn't understand why I was laughing and cheering at the same time. So I tried to see it from her point of view. There was no Olympic level athleticism involved. No OJ type moves. If you don't know football very well, nothing about the play truly stands out. But when you watch football a lot, it was so unlikely. At first the play looks like a dud - a poorly thrown pass that was bobbled and there were three guys all over Coop in any case. Just a bad play. But then Coop extemporaneously tosses the ball back to the QB - when does that ever happen? And then Josh breaks a tackle and dives for the pylon - a play many RBs could make but very few QBs. The bad play magically tranformed into an amazing, snowy touchdown.

I remember thinking back in the early 90s that it was only a matter of time before Kelly and the Bills won a SB. By the third loss, the nation was sick of the Bills. By the fourth loss, even some Bills fans were hoping the Bills didn't go back just to break their hearts again. It felt like someone had laid a curse on the organization.

100 years from now, when NFL historians look back on the Goodell's reign, these are the two things they'll most remember hiim for: making the season longer and efforts to grow the sport internationally.

Somewhere in the multiverse, there's another version of the Bills that just plain sucks. The GM sucks, the coach sucks, and the QB sucks. And to make it all so much worse, that team doesn't play in Orchard Park - its home is in Toronto, or St. Louis, or San Antionio, or Mexico City because someone besides Terry bought the team. I so want Buffalo to win a Lombardi and I'm grateful for all three - Pegs, Beane, and McD - giving us realistic hope.

You may be right. But as the wins pile up, I'm starting to think McD and Babich know what they're doing. Their bend-don't-break approach has given up a bunch of rushing yards, but not a bunch of points. We're 5th in scoring defense and 2nd in point differential.

It was a good speech and I fault him for none of it. But I also noticed this... he referenced 5 straight AFCE championships and making the playoffs 7 of the past 8 years after 17 years of drought. How many players were there for all that? None. But McD was. While he was giving them all the credit, he was reciting his own resume. In other words, he was subtly reminding them of his personal accomplishments. Not to feed his ego, I assume, but to reinforce his credibility to make him more effective as a leader and get players to buy into "the process" even more (or not stop buying in). It's like a pirate captain reminding his crew of all the good booty he helped them capture.

Maybe I should have said that a battle of RBs 'seemingly' favors them. The 49ers are ranked 7th in rushing so far this year versus our 18th ranking. They average 4.9 ypc versus our 4.3. On the statistical surface, it does seem they're the better running team. Then again CMC isn't fully recovered. The cold winter weather combined with injuries to their star QB and star RB doesn't bode well for San Francisco's offense.

With the weather being what it is and Purdy having shoulder problems, it seems like this will be a game of opposing RBs - which favors them. But Josh says screw the elements: Offense: Shakir Defense: Milano (playing far more snaps than almost anyone expected)

I like rivalry more than I like irrelevance. But I like dominance more than I like rivalry. I'd be perfectly happy to see the Bills continue to beat Miami game after game.