2003Contenders

Given that the game-sealing INT took place right in front of him, I too took it as a sign of respect and appreciation for an opponent who had just played a very good game against his team.

As we have seen, anything can happen. Right now the 3 hottest teams in the NFL are the Lions, Bills and Eagles. The Chargers are starting to turn heads, and the Steelers will not go away with that top drawer defense they have. The Chiefs have shown that they can always find a way to pull out a close game in the 4th quarter. Going strictly by odds, etc. it would appear that the Bills will be favored in 5 of their remaining 6 games as they will likely be 2-4 point underdogs in their game against the Lions but favored in the other 5. The 49ers have struggled at times this season as their record indicates, but I still expect that to be a tough game. Hopefully the Bills will be refreshed (with possibly some healthy reinforcements) and ready for business after the bye. They can't afford to come out flat after the extended rest and get down early to a team with CMC! The Rams are finally healthy, and their offense is now multi-faceted. We've already talked about how well the Lions have been playing. The funny thing is that their weakest game in the past few weeks (against Houston) may also be their most impressive, as they got down big early in that game (thanks to 5 INTs by Goff) and found a way to come back and pull out a win. Bottom line is that all 3 of those NFC games will be tough. It is tempting to pencil in all 3 of the final games as a "W", but they are all against division rivals who would love nothing better than to play the role of spoiler. Yes, the Bills SHOULD win all 3 of those games -- but they can't afford to lose any focus or intensity. They did exactly that in 3 of the 4 games in which they faced the Jets/Patriots last season and finished 2-2 against them.

The Ravens (and Texans) caught us at the right time, when the Bills were going through their annual 2-3 game slump, partly due to injuries. The Ravens also happened to be peaking at that time -- they have not looked nearly as good in recent weeks. Yes, they continue to run the ball well and stop the run, which will always make them a bad match-up for us. But if we see them again in the playoffs, I think we can take them. FWIW, if we meet the Texans again, I think we DESTROY them. Josh played the worst game of his career (at least since his rookie year), and Houston STILL barely won that game at the end of regulation.

I do remember that play. It was a 4th-and-1, and the Chiefs were pretty deep in their own territory (like the 38-yard line). So when Reid decided to line up to go for it, everyone knew that they were just trying to draw the Bills off-sides. When the clock started getting close to 0. I noticed the same thing you did about Mahomes casually walking toward the sideline. Rather than thinking he was going out for a pass, though, I thought maybe the Chiefs had a direct snap in place to the RB and Mahomes was just trying to divert the attention of the defense. The Rams did this with Kurt Warner successfully many years ago. I wonder if Andy Reid had Mahomes do this on purpose to give a look for the potential of calling a play like that in the future?

Was in a tweet today from Alex Brasky. The tweet stated: "During Thursday #Bills practice, WR Amari Cooper (wrist) appeared to increase his participation from what we saw last week. Thursday, Cooper caught passes both from coaches and QB Josh Allen. A good sign that he is trending toward a return following a 2-game absence #BillsMafia" Alex Brasky Tweet

He appears to be trending in the right direction to play Sunday. Was catching passes from Allen today in practice. So we will see...

I'm not sure that the Bills could have fit Hopkins' under the tight cap space, even with the Titans picking up some of his $.

Offensively, the Chiefs are not putting up crazy numbers -- but they are just finding ways to get it done. Mahomes has only eclipsed the 300-yard mark as a passer once, and he has only accounted for as many as three TDs (combined passing/rushing) once on the season. As a team they have only one 100-yard WR performance on the season (JuJu) and two 100-yard rushing days (both Hunt) -- and it took 27 carries in each of those games to eclipse the century mark. Kelce has been his usual reliable self though -- and he has really started heating up coming into this game with three straight strong performances. But... the Chiefs have had their own issues defending AGAINST opposing tight ends. The following guys have all racked up at least 50 yards and/or scored a TD against them: Isaiah Likely, Mike Gisicki, Kyle Pitts, Foster Moreau, George Kittle, Brock Bowers, and Cade Orton. It's a shame that Kincaid looks like he will be out -- but this could be a big spot for Knox, who has had some success against the Chiefs in the past. Knox could be a nice, cheap play in DFS this week!

I will also say that he seems to have developed pretty good chemistry with Josh. Many of his best receptions have been on busted plays where Josh has found him open.

If it makes you feel better, while the Ravens have the resources to expose the Bills' weaknesses, I'm not sure the Chiefs do. The key thing that the Ravens do is RUN the ball on offense and STOP the run on defense. While the Chiefs' run defense is outstanding, 83 yards per game (3rd best in the NFL) and 3.65 yards per carry (2nd best), their own run game on offense is pretty bad. They do average 115 yards per game, which is middle-of-the-pack, but when you look more closely and realize that they are averaging over 30 carries per game (7th in the league) and just 3.8 yards per carry (3rd worst in the NFL), their running game does not scare me at all. True, they have been playing without I. Pacheco, who was just designated for return -- but (a la Milano) he is unlikely to suit up for the next couple of weeks. I realize that the Chiefs are 9-0 for a reason. They are well coached, have a generational QB and an outstanding defense. They have also shown a crazy ability to eke out close games. From that perspective, they are certainly a tough match-up for anyone in the league. I just don't see them as a kryptonite kind of match-up for the Bills. For one thing, the Bills have been MUCH better in turnover differential than the Chiefs. Also, many of those close games for the Chiefs have come against teams that sit well below 0.500, while the Bills have been blowing those types of teams out. I see this as a close game between two of the top teams in the NFL that can go either way.

Given Spector's going to IR, I would think this would be a logical fill-in -- assuming, of course, there is not something more to his release than has been reported.

Rather than focusing on the run defense, I think it is critical to examine the Bills' overall defense against opposing RBs. That is, the defense against RBs catching passes out of the backfield is what has been REALLY bad. Against Arizona, 6 receptions for 64 yards (over 10 yards/catch) Against Miami (first game) 9 receptions for 81 yards (9 yards per catch) Against Jacksonville 4 receptions for 17 yards Against Baltimore 9 receptions for 88 yards (9.8 yards per catch) Against Houston 8 receptions for 62 yards (7.75 yards per catch) Against Jets 5 receptions for 56 yards (11.2 yards per catch) Against Tennessee 3 receptions for 13 yards Against Seattle 7 receptions for 53 yards (7.6 yards per catch) Against Miami (2nd time) 10 receptions for 90 yards (9 yards per catch) Essentially in the team's 9 games, only twice was this not a problem -- and that came against Jacksonville and Tennessee that did not really even try to pass the ball to their backs. Otherwise, teams have had success getting 8-10 yards per pass to their RBs. Not sure what the best remedy is for this, but it is also part of the price you pay for only keeping 6 in the box and dropping everyone else back into coverage.

I think I get the point that Marino was making, so I tried taking a deeper statistical dive myself. On the surface the Bills rush defense has not been great. They are in the middle of the pack, giving up 123 yards per game(#15). That is confounded further when you realize that (because they have been on the winning side of many blowouts and teams have had to abandon the run), they have the 11th fewest rush attempts per game (25.67) against them. That equates to the 4th worst 4.8 yards per rush attempt in the league. We have seen that when teams stay committed to the run against the Bills (most notably the Ravens and Dolphins), they can do so with success. But, while the Bills have struggled bottling opponents up in these situations, they have also successfully held down the fort when they needed to do so. That is, they have done a solid job of stuffing 3rd-and-1 as well as 4th-and-one plays and have been very stout in goal-to-go situations. This is further evidenced by their only allowing 0.67 rushing TDs per game (7th best in the league) -- and they have forced (and recovered) an average of exactly 1 fumble per game -- 4th in the league. Going against mediocre teams in the NFL, this style of defense (especially given the current talent that the team has) is a recipe for success. It forces the opposing offense to have long and sustained drives in order to score -- thereby creating more chances for them to make a mistake (penalty, turnover, etc.) We have also seen that it requires a great deal of patience on the part of the opposing coach and QB. To their credit McDaniel and Tua did exactly that on Sunday. Thankfully Josh and the offense were able to keep up. The old bend-but-don't-break adage. Of course, when facing a top-flight offense as we have seen in the playoffs, that often leads to death-by-a-thousand-paper cuts! The flip side of the coin is that when the team has faced an offense that they are not overly concerned with beating them over-the-top, they have shown that they are more liable to stack the box -- and they have had some success shutting down the run. A great example of this came in the Seattle game, where they predicated the defense on limiting Walker and forcing Geno (sans Metcalf) to beat them with his arm. I would imagine a similar gameplan this week against Indy -- focus on containing Taylor and take your chances against an immobile Flacco and middling WRs.

On thing I keep thinking is that as a new addition to the offense in the off-season, his acclimation was hampered by the toe injury that he STILL may not be fully healed. My observation is that he is simply not getting many looks from Josh in this offense, which makes me wonder if the missed time in the preseason and lingering affects into the regular season has hampered their ability to develop chemistry and get on the same page.

There was a play in another game (I think it was the Rams vs Seattle) where an official threw a flag for a personal foul -- and then picked it up saying that further review from upstairs deemed that it was not a penalty. These calls "from upstairs" are very random. If they are going to do them, they need to be consistent and only used for plays that are impactful -- like Josh's TD run.

SDS, thank you for sharing this tragic news with us and for providing such a moving eulogy for John. I remember him well -- going back over 20 years, he was always a great guy, willing to go down with the ship -- a true believer and an optimist for the Bills and the team's future. RIP, loyal fan and fiend! And prayer for his friends and family that he loved so much!

For a guy who was ridiculed for being "slow", Coleman sure does well with YAC on those bubbles that for Diggs always seemed to result in a TFA. Clearly his physicality compensates for a slower 40-time.

Speaking of the schedule, something just dawned on me. The Bills are facing all 4 participants in the prior season's championship games (Chiefs, Ravens, 49ers, and Lions). Has that ever happened before?

There is a long time to go in the season (and beyond), so anything can happen between now and then. Hard not to give Lamar the nod up to this point -- of course, it helps having a RB at your side who is on pace to break the single-season rushing record. Goff is setting a new standard in terms of accuracy this year too, so it is worth watching to see if he can keep that up. The fact that Josh has yet to toss an INT certainly bears consideration, especially since his tossing too many INTs has been the reason given for overlooking him the last few years. I also wonder if the acquisition of Cooper will help his passing numbers to explode. In the first game with Amari, Josh threw for over 300 yards. He's never done that before WITHOUT Diggs on the team. Shows how important having a true WR1 is.

The slow starts on defense have always been a staple of McD's coaching philosophy. He has always come out on the first series or two in a somewhat base, bend-but-don't-break scheme -- waiting to see what the opposing offense is doing and then adjusting from there. Given his success rate, it is hard to argue that this is a bad strategy. The real key is that the offense needs to come out more on fire -- and please STOP these early-down play calls that are not designed to get more than a few yards, placing them in critical 3rd-down situations.

Here is what I will say... Beane and the scouts did their due diligence on Franklin. Even after what was described as a disappointing combine, they met with him on multiple occasions and attended individual workouts. Based on that, I was under the impression that they were high on him and I thought he was the likely WR they were targeting when they moved down to the 1st pick of the 2nd round (where they eventually selected Coleman). In reality it seems that their repeated visits with him confirmed whatever doubts they may have had about him after the combine -- whether that was limitations they viewed physically or something regarding his character/personality/mentality/etc. I guess we will never know, but what we do know is that obviously OBD valued Coleman over him. And even if they had better than a 4th round grade on him, they obviously preferred drafting Carter over him.

Not so sure about that. Franklin was selected by the Broncos with a trade-up to the #2 pick in the 4th round. In order for the Bills to have been in the position to draft Franklin they would have either: 1. Selected Franklin with the late 3rd they used on Carter OR 2. Traded up in the 4th, with the picks they used to acquire Ray Davis, SVP (and possibly more) It will take a year or more before we know for sure how all this pans out, but for now, I am leaning toward the choices that Beane and the War Room made back in April.

If this report is true, I wonder if the "no" to Buffalo was less about the city/organization and more about his unwillingness to be flexible regarding his contract, because supposedly just a week ago Buffalo was one of the teams he was interested in playing for.

I will say that early in the game every time something bad happened #24 seemed to be involved. Not so much in the 2nd half. Hopefully he learned from those early-game lumps.

Samuel HAS been missing all season.