2003Contenders

I was thinking about that after the game too -- what will Josh's career look like when it is all said and done? I think it will go one of three ways: 1. Like Dan Marino or Dan Fouts he will be remembered as one of the best QBs of his era -- but one who sadly came along at the wrong time when he played for a team that just could not get past other teams that were simply better. 2. Like Ken Stabler whose teams were always playing deep into the playoffs back in the 70s but thwarted by better teams (Dolphins, Steelers) -- but he finally won one. 3. Like Peyton Manning who could not get past the Patriots (and other teams) early in his career -- but finally broke through in route to multiple Super Bowls. I think Josh is better than all of the QBs on my list above -- he just needs better receiver options (like they all had) to get over the hump.

Good post. I was one of those who was starting to believe that it was time to bring an end to the McDermott era when we were 6-6 and lost to the Eagles after some questionable decisions. Then the team went 5-0 to end the season, beating some good teams in the process. Hard to imagine wanting to fire a head coach that oversaw such a closeout to gain the #2 overall seed in the the AFC, when they were on the outside looking in just 5 weeks before. And it is also hard for me to lay much blame at the feet of McDermott for what went down Sunday against the Chiefs. In terms of coaching decisions, I suppose you could fault him for approving the fake punt -- but that did not cost the Bills the game given that they were fortunate to get the ball back after the fumble. Otherwise, I thought he did a good job with clock management, challenges, and having the team prepared (given the circumstances). In fact, there have been numerous posts about what cost the Bills that game -- missed FG, critical dropped passes, questions about the 2nd an 9 play after the 2:00 warning, depleted defense, etc. Again, hard to blame McD for any of those. How about this? Maybe the Chiefs deserve some credit for playing out of their minds on Sunday! Their receivers, who had been sub par pretty much the whole season, caught every catchable pass thrown their way. Their OL, playing on the road in a hostile setting against a healthy Buffalo DL (the one part of the defense that was healthy), was spectacular allowing almost no pressure whatsoever against Mahomes. When their own defense needed to clamp down in the 4th quarter, they did -- adjusting the stop Cook and the running game that had been carving them up the first 3 quarters.

I agree with most of this -- just not that Diggs and Miller necessarily have to stay based on their contracts. There are ways to rework other contracts (Josh's, Dawkins, etc) that could put us in the position of ridding us of those other inflated contracts. In Von's case (unless he suddenly finds the fountain of youth and is 100% healthy) I think that is a necessity. In Diggs' case I am still on the fence. What caused the serious regression in the 2nd half of the season? Evolving role in Brady's offense? Diminished skills? Undisclosed injury? Off-field distraction? Depending on what that root cause was, would determine what I would want to do with him heading into 2024. With or without Diggs, in addition to investing at least one high draft pick on a WR, I would be inclined to bring in at least one mid-priced free agent WR (like Beane did back in 2019 with Beasley and Brown) rather than scrap-heap guys like Beane has thrown darts at the last few seasons. Obviously we can't afford a high-priced guy like Higgins or Evans. But what about someone like Marquise Brown, Darnell Mooney, Curtis Samuel, or Josh Reynolds? Mooney could be a real sleeper going from the garbage he has had in Chicago to #17, and he is just 2 seasons removed from a 1,000-yard season. Bottom line, Beane needs to hit the jackpot on some of the draft picks come April, including some late-round gems.

IMHO the absolute worst play of the game was one that will likely be forgotten in the grand scheme of things -- but changed the trajectory of a game where both defenses were having trouble stopping both offenses. Ironically NEITHER team would score again after this play. That play came on the 1st offensive drive of the 4th quarter, right after the Chiefs had just taken a 27-24 lead. On first down, Josh takes it 8 yards to set up 2nd and 2. That is a great position to be in for the offense. Either you run a high percentage play to get the 1st down -- or you run play-action to try for a big play and even if you don't convert it, you come back with a favorable 3rd and short. What do they do instead? They call a draw to Cook from shotgun -- and he gets blown up in the backfield for a 3 yard loss. Now, instead of a 1st down or 3rd and short it is 3rd and 5, which is no longer a gimme, and the next play results in a batted pass. The next play after that, of course was the failed punt attempt. The Bills, of course, get lucky and get the ball back after the Hartman fumble. So what is the first play called as the Bills try to regain momentum? You guessed it, another draw to Cook from shotgun, resulting in a 4-yard loss. After a short screen to Shakir, the 3rd down-play was the deep shot to Sherfield that he dropped. So instead of seizing the momentum here, they go three-and-out and punt the ball away.

This. The Vegas line had it at 2.5 for the Bills and and over-under of 45.5. That means that the Vegas experts implied a 24-21.5 game. So the offense held up to their end of the bargain. The defense gave up 5.5 points than projected. While it can't be denied that the defense (secondary and LBers) was a MASH unit, the DL was pretty much healthy -- and with 10 available players on that unit, they should have been fresh all game. With the Bills offense dominating time of possession that is even more the case. So the real story -- beyond everything else that happened -- is why the DL with so much invested in it was unable to pick up the slack and at least apply some pressure on Mahomes, let alone bottle up Pacheco. And any game plan (regardless of injuries) that allowed Kelce to run as wide open as he did, needs to be highly scrutinized. Also, credit where it is due, the Chiefs played very well. Their WRs (aside from Rice) played terribly all season -- and even in the playoffs against Miami had a number of key drops that resulted in stalled drives leading to FGs rather than TDs. Against the Bills last night, however, I do not recall a single dropped pass on the part of KC. Of course, the Bills had a number of huge ones.

Yea, with the depleted defense and lack of speed at LB there is no way they would have been able to contain Lamar as they have historically done in the past. Imagine LJ doing what Mahomes did on that one long run to start the 2nd half all game long! Speaking of that, it was sad how Douglas just watched Mahomes run right by him without even trying to make a tackle. In fact, Douglas looked out-of-sorts all game long; probably would have been better to let him sit out another week and rolled the dice with Elam.

I will have to see greater detail on the All-22, but the crossing route to Diggs also may not have been as open as it first appeared. There was a corner lurking right behind Diggs, possibly bating Josh into that throw. Remember, just a few minutes before there was a near-pick 6 jump route on an attempted pass to Diggs.

Bingo! The difference in the game? Mahomes' much-maligned receivers caught virtually every catchable pass thrown to them -- Josh's did not.

Note also that against both Miami and Pittsburgh they blitzed at a heavy rate (over 50%). It is hard to get the ball downfield in those situations.

Agreed -- and it may be time to add some wrinkles/gadget plays with Harty and see if he can get some decent YAC.

One thing I just realized... when we played against the Chiefs earlier this season (Week 14), that was part of that series of games when Gabe went 3 out of 4 (the exception being the Philly game) without catching a single pass. It will be interesting to see what his role would be if he is indeed healthy against a team that he has had success against in the past.

I think it serves also to provide reminders in late-game key situations, especially when you do have back-ups in there. Things like: "There are only 10 seconds left and they have no timeouts. Make a tackle in the field of play and the game is over!"

Well, there is a certain WR who shall remain unnamed who legend has it did take it deep against the Chiefs multiple times the last time these 2 teams met in the playoffs to the tune of 200+ yards and 4 TDs. Whether or not he is healthy enough to go remains to be seen.

Add also that the Ravens (with Lamar Jackson) have not exactly lit it up in the playoffs. I believe they have one win to their credit.

Kudos to a guy who had a career year the season AFTER signing a big contract!

The crazy thing is that when this happened last time it was Josh who was penalized for shoving the creep after the play. Wait until Wilkins does this to everyone's fair-haired-boy Mahomes. Bet the outrage ensues then.

Add also that the Dolphins added new wrinkles with all of the misdirection on the running plays, and I think the DL was instructed to hang back a bit and not over-pursue.

Also, I think a huge difference is in demeanor and the way the respective coaches' have handled the players. I always attributed Josh's being "dialed back" under Dorsey to mandates from McD about not putting the ball in harm's way, etc. Same with Cook's benching for the first half of the Denver game because of the fumble on the first offensive play of the game. However, in the Jets game (Brady's first game as OC) we hear Josh exclaim, "I'm back!" -- and in all the games since it really does seem like Josh has been playing like his old self (both the good and the bad, as we saw in the Miami game). Also a couple of weeks back, the broadcasters alluded to a comment from Cook regarding Brady: Cook said was relieved not to have been "disciplined" after dropping that potential TD pass against Philly. Same thing Sunday night, even after dropping the TD pass against Miami, Brady showed faith in going back to Cook. By implication, it would seem that benching Cook in the Denver game was Dorsey's doing, not McD's. It just seems like under Dorsey, the players were possibly over-coached to the point of worrying too much about making mistakes -- whereas under Brady they have been much more loose and comfortable.

Davis does many things well -- he is physical in the run game (remember, he received a game ball in the Dallas game even though he did not catch a pass). I just wish he was more reliable in terms of his route running and pass catching. I actually do hope that he is healthy enough to play against Pittsburgh -- because, due to the bad weather and Pittsburgh's tough defense, Davis would definitely make a big impact in a ball-control offense sort of day. Speaking of Pittsburgh, for years I have thought that what the Bills REALLY need is a clone of Hines Ward. A guy who is physical and can do all those things that Davis does do well -- but at the same time has great hands and runs precise routes.

He should be a big target for Josh on Sunday considering the weather and the fact that the Steelers' weakness on defense is with their LBs.

For all the righteous indignation about how poorly Gabe has been playing -- he DID have a career game the last time we played against Pittsburgh.

Something that I just realized -- the Bills record over the last 2 seasons when Von is NOT on the field is exemplary. Recall that he went down in the Detroit game last season -- and the Bills won every regular season game after that. This year he was inactive for the first four games -- and the only one of those games the Bills lost was the Jets game in which the defense played well -- and we lost because Josh was careless with the football. In fact, when Von was inserted this season (against the Jags) that is when our of our troubles began. Interesting. Not sure how much of this is coincidence, the surrounding players stepping it up knowing that he is out, changes to defense alignment, etc. He did have some key plays last season -- but has been mostly invisible this season.

TEs historically have a pretty big learning curve because of the variety of things they are asked to do both in terms of protections as well as the passing game. It is a bit unfair to compare Kincaid to LaPorta given that LaPorta has had an out-of-this-world rookie season. All things considered, Kincaid has had a fine rookie season with 66 receptions for 589 yards. His 66 receptions rank 8th in the league for TEs. He caught 81.48% of his targets, which ranks ahead of all the big-time TEs such as Engram(80%), McBride (78%), Likely (77.78%), Kelce (76.86%), Hockenson (74.8%), Andrews (73.77%), Goedert (73.42%), Kittle (72.22%), and LaPorta (71.68%). So he is doing a good job catching the ball. It's not his fault that the goons that design the plays for the Bills are not placing him in a position to be more productive (just 2 TDs).

Interesting... I was under the impression that Howard was almost definitely out, Waddle was 50/50 and Mostert was likely back, given that Mostert practiced in some capacity last week but was surprisingly scratched. I wonder if Mostert aggravated something in practice -- or if Miami's McD was playing games with the injury designations. Maybe he is doing the same this week. Honestly, if Miami is truly limited at so many positions (including a nicked Tua), I wonder if they would be best served to rest guys knowing that they are at least assured a playoff spot? Yes, they would certainly rather play at home than on the road in the playoffs -- but I also think they would rather be as close to healthy as possible and not risk further injury to guys who are already banged up.

It is hard to look at stats overall, because each game presents its own unique situation. I think we can all agree that the offense looked much improved in Brady's first two games as OC against the Jets and Eagles. Against the Chiefs, who sport a top-notch defense, the numbers were not as great but the offense still did enough to pull out the victory on the road in Arrowhead. The Cowboys game was also hugely successful with Brady showing the adaptation to move toward a rushing attack that was tailor-made to thwart a Cowboys defense that was built to stop the pass. I suspect that the success of the rushing attack in that game may have given Brady a bit of an inflated view of just how good the offense really is at running the ball, given that they had nowhere near that sort of success against either the Chargers or the Pats. Speaking of which... The offense certainly regressed after the Dallas game -- but I do not think they were nearly as bad against the Chargers as we remember. Remember that 3 bad turnovers (including one on Special Teams) served to minimize the offensive output in that game. The Pats game was another story entirely, as the offense looked as bad as it has all year long (with either Brady or Dorsey). Plenty of blame to go around here, as the play calling definitely left a lot to be desired -- but the OL did not do a great job, Josh missed on some key opportunities, and the receivers (running backs included) dropped some very catch-able passes. Sometimes, though, you have to give credit where it is due -- and Bill Bellichick had a masterful game plan that his players executed excellently. You know that after those back-to-back games against Josh and the Bills back in 2021 (where the Bills did not punt a single time in either game), BB was up nights trying to figure out a defense that would thwart Josh. To an extent, he succeeded as the offense did not play nearly as well against the Patriots last year. And in 2 games this year, that defense gave Josh fits. The Pats figured out a way to make Josh uncomfortable -- and when he is uncomfortable, he s prone to making mistakes (and missing open receivers).