hondo in seattle

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.

I don't watch much non-Bills football but I watched the second half of both those games and thought the same thing. In each case, I was rooting for the team that screwed up. I like the Lions well enough but I was tired of the hype and wanted them to come back to earth a bit. And as a potential Bills opponent in the Super Bowl, I wanted to be reassured that they're vulnerable. And, obviously, I wanted the Chiefs to lose for seeding. An amazingly dumb way to lose games. Hopefully, I've now exhausted the entirety of my bad juju and will have a good Sunday.

Bills 27 9ers 17

Reportedly, the players were angry in the locker room at the end of the game and near the point of mutiny. Keenan Allen, for example, said, "I feel like we did enough as players to win the game." Whether the wasted clock was more the HC's or QB's fault is immaterial at this point. When the coach loses the locker room, he's done.

Hindsight is 20-20 as they say and we all know it's a "passing league." But Barkley is an elite talent while Jones is a mediocre, easily replaceable QB. I know Jones had that one "good" year but it's still puzzling to me and many fans why they chose to pay him. I'd like to read the transcripts of their private conversations.

An aquaintance who worked as the finance manager of a dealership shocked me when he told me how much money he makes. Dealerships can be highly profitiable and GMs can make a very good (6 figure++) income. Though nothing like football money.

@machine gun kelly, that's a tempting offer. I first starting learning the joys of Chinese food about the same time Vince Ferragamo was taking snaps for the Bills. And way back then, my favorite dish was Kung Pao chicken; I rarely ordered anything else. The spicier, the better - within reason. You're lucky to have a Chinese wife. Americanized Chinese food is okay but authentic Chinese food is awesome.

Accuracy is a funny metric. To me, it means putting the ball on target. To statisticians and many fans, it means a high completion percentage. They're not the same. And in either case, context matters. Inaccurate passes (including picks) can be caused by many things: the QB just throwing a bad ball with no excuse, the QB making a bad decision, the QB being under duress, the receiver running a wrong or slopping route, the ball being tipped at the line of scrimmage, weather... Completion percentage is effected by all of these but also by things the QB can't control such as scheme, play-calling, wideout separation and talent, the ability of the offense to run the ball and take some pressure off the QB, and so on. Allen has responsibility for some of accuracy problems his first few years but his completion percentage was also adversely effected by other factors such as a porous offensive line, bad scheme, imprecise route running, and so on. To say it differently, I don't think Allen was personally as bad as some of his bad day/year stats say he was. One thing that frustrated me is how often Allen threw picks because he was on the run needing to make a play. It's hard to blame a guy for making a risky throw in an adverse situation when we desperately need to get some yards. In fact, if you could do a game theory analysis on score, down-and-distance, and all that, some of Allen's "bad decision" picks probably weren't bad decisions at all. He made low percentage throws because that was the best hope we had at the time.

When I think of San Francisco's signature dishes, I think of both Cioppino and clam chowder in a sour dough bowl. The problem is that I don't enjoy seafood. In any case, the San Francisco food scene is about so much more - including good (i.e. delicious, authentic) Chinese food. With roughly 500,000 Chinese people in the Bay Area, Chinese dishes legitimately represent San Francisco just like Polish dishes fairly represent Buffalo. So I've been thinking about dim sum. But making fresh, authentic dim sum at home is hard and frozen dim sum just isn't the same. There are great dim sum restaurants not far from me but dim sum doesn't really travel well. So now I'm thinking about some spicy Szechuan food like Chongqing Chicken which is one of my favorite foods on the planet. Then maybe some sliced pork in chili oil for variety. And spicy szechuan green beans for a veggie. If I was condemned to die, I'd probably have szechuan for my last meal.

This might be my second favorite Bills game of all time! (Though I didn't remember we won on "wide-right.") 1000+ yards of offense... Lots of scoring, turnovers, and other big plays... And the Bills won. What's not to love?

I was just trying to anticipate critics who might mention both Spielman and Tannebaum were fired in the end. But I agree. And there's this, too. Woody hired The 33rd Team which just recently expanded into the Executive Search business. I don't know who at The 33rd Team will be involved in executive search, but the following folks work for The 33rd Team: Tannebaum, Spielman, Chuck Pagano, Jay Gruden, Mike Martz, Dave Wannstedt, Jeff Diamond, Joe Banner, and others. There's a lot of collective wisdom there. I'm sure they can ably identify and vet candidates which is what Woody is paying them to do.

You and I can judge a good QB without ever having played QB at the NFL. But Dan Orlovsky, who did play in the NFL, can analyze QBs better than either of us despite having never been a great QB himself. Tannebaum and Spielman are Dan Orlovsky. Tannebaum spent 22 years as a personnel guy in the league, got promoted a few times, and two teams thought he was capable and smart enough to be a GM or VP. (If we're counting, zero teams have thought you or I were capable or smart enough to be GM). After his retiring from football as a player, Rick Spielman went to work as a scout, earned promotions through his good work, and eventually became a VP and GM. He has roughly 30 years of personnel experience. They might not know how to build a winning organization as well as, for example, Bill Polian. But together they undoubtedly have lots of contacts throughout the league who will give them insider intel on all the candidates. They're fully capable of their assigned role: "help identify and vet candidates in addition to coordinate interviews."

I'm not sure why this is a "absolute joke." Some owners handle the search themselves. I'll guess Spielman and Tannebaum together know more about football coaches and GMs just about any owner. Some critics may point out that their credentials are weak considering they both ended their GM careers in failure. But, then again, look at us fans. We always know with certainty who should be the GM and coach of our favorite team and we have no experience or insider knowledge whatsoever.

The Ravens are the team I worry most about. Our defense is built to stop the pass, not stop power backs like Henry. And we can't compensate for our weakness but stacking the box because they can throw too. I actually worry about every game because our roster isn't spectacularly better than any other roster we'll face in the playoffs.

My dog, sitting beside me as I type this, agrees.

I'm thinking of skipping football entirely this weekend and instead taking my dog mountain biking or for a walk on the beach. Or meditating at a Zen monastery in the mountains. It may be sacrilege to say this here, but there's more to life than football. At least on a non-Bills weekend.

Some Bills fans had excuses after 13 seconds. Some legit. Some not so much. Some Chief fans had excuses after this past game. Some legit. Some not so much. We're more alike than different. And that's true of Americans in general. But, sadly, we focus on the differences and the things that divide us.

I don't buy the conspiracy theory that the NFL is fixing games for the Chiefs. It just doesn't make sense to me. The NFL would have too much to lose and too little to gain. The league is a cash cow as it is. A Chiefs three-peat would add very little revenue if any. A cheating conspiracy would sorely damage the league's credibility and cost it untold millions. As for the unconcious bias theory, that might be real. But I think the effect would be very subtle with little influence on win-loss records. Refereeing can be frustrating sometimes. It's probably true that bad calls even out over time. But in a one-and-done playoff system, a single bad call can ruin a team's chance to win a Lombardi.

It's very true. Can you imagine the feeling? One week you're a starting NFL QB - if not a very successful one. The next week you're wearing a red jersey lining up as the scout team safety. www.on3.com/pro/news/report-daniel-jones-spotted-playing-scout-team-safety-new-york-giants-practice/

Yikes, indeed. They head-scatchingly bet the farm on Jones as their franchise QB and paid him $40 million per year only to demote him to 3rd (some say 4th) string and have him play practice squad safety the other day in drills. Usually a GM doesn't survive a mistake that monumental. Unless it wasn't Schoen's call.

My Browns fandom started in (roughly) 1968 when the Browns were the best team in the Century Division and the Cowboys were the best team in the Capitol Division. For youngsters who don't know, the Browns were one of three old NFL teams that moved to the AFC when the NFL and AFL merged in 1970. I agree, I can't root for the Browns when Watson is under center.

You might be right but... (1) All teams lose games due to injuries. (2) There's no telling what would have happened if both teams were fully healthy that game. There's no alternate universe where that played out. Every game is a mystery until it happens.