PlayoffsPlease

One could ask if you could have seen the thread title and simply ignored this thread instead of being the thread police.

3

the "16 games that count " has been a fallacy for 20 years. Most of those years after 10 games or so the season is over for the bills regardless of the outcome of the rest of the games. A loss won't mean we wont make the playoffs. But a win here makes its over 80% likely the Bills will. Plus beating the Patriots doesn't just mean the Bills have a nice 4-0 start. It means they have beaten the team considered in every single power ranking as the best team on the planet. Comparing this to a meaningless week 16 game is absurd.

Sometimes reading is hard.

Believe what you want but 29 nfl gms are trying figure out if they can get one of the leagues best WRs for vet minimum

yes there is something you missed.

The Steelers with Ben were mauled by the Pats. That game was executed flawlessly from start to finish by the pats.

Pars have massacred their bums. Bills need two q4 drives to win. bills can win this game. But it is a long shot is

Google is easy to use https://www.masseyratings.com/nfl/ratings

Bookmakers at the large shops have their own version of power rankings that assign a numerical value to each team based on expected performance against an average team. Home field advantage is actually not an automatic 3 points, but is based on teams actual histories. But it is typically between 2.5 and 3. So 3 is a perfectly fine short hand. The use this to set INITIAL betting lines. The actually lines move depending on actual bets placed, to try to keep the action even on both sides. Currently bookmakers rate the Patriots in the neighborhood of -10. They rank the Bills in the neighborhood of -1. With the home field advantage of 3, the initial line should be -11 - -1 +3 = 6. Other factors such as know bettor bias (big market teams and teams like the Pats draw more bets to their side) are built into their algorithms as well.

What makes you think the Bills will lose to the hapless Mason Rudolph led Steelers?

1. Ben Rothlisberger may not have been a top 5 QB every single season, but over the course of the entire number of years he played, he definitely was. I can prove this by adding "you betcha" 2. "Have a chance every year" is not the same as sustained excellence, for the purposes of my post. Feel free to use my definition (in the OP) to demonstrate which teams accomplished sustained excellence the four I mentioned (each of whom were led by future HOF QBs). Having an excellent non-future HOF QB probably gives a chance every year (of course chance every year is not really measurable). Have Matt Stafford and the Lions had a chance every year? Did Carson Palmer and the Bengals?

Fans seem to be hanging their hats on the concept that there somehow there is a requirement to have short term mediocrity or failure in order to build for a period of sustained excellence. Not sure 21st history really bears that out. I think sustained excellence is fancy word for having one of the leagues top 3 or 5 QBs for an extended period of time. Bills fans are skewed by their relation with the Patriots. I am going to go out on a limb and say their run of success is a fluke, that won't happen again in my lifetime. In truth only 4 teams have really had a period of sustained excellence in the this century. Indianapolis with Peyton Manning, Steelers with Ben Rothlisberger and the Patriots with Tom Brady and the Saints with Drew Brees. Other teams have had intermittent successes with a different model, notably the Ravens. But no team without a future HOF QB who truly gaps out from their peers has accomplished that. ( I am defining sustained excellence as appearing in divisional playoff games more than 50% of the time for an extended period of years. Anything less would be more like "sustained good".) One great QB Aaron Rodgers only had intermittent success. So HOF QB is not the only thing for "sustained excellence" just the minimum starting requirements. I don't think top 10 QB really gets you sustained success. Think Matt Ryan or Cam Newton or Russell Wilson. Their teams had their moments when everything came together. Fortunately Josh Allen is a future HOF QB, and he provides the minimum building block to lead the teams to playoff wins and championships for the next dozen years. Starting this year.

Trying to understand how the "lets offer a pay cut" scenario played out internally: Coaching staff : "Richie is fat and coming to meetings high" GM Staff: "Has he flunked an NFL drug test" Coaching Staff : "No" GM Staff : "Lets give him a pay cut and hope he doesn't get caught" I see cutting him outright. I just don't see how the pay cut concept fits any "process". Color me confused.

Its exciting when you consider how many times the Bills have taken WR's cut by multiple other teams and coached them up into NFL stars.

Patriots have not scored less than 30 this season. The have given up an average of 5.7 pts per game. The most the Bills have scored is 28. The have given up an average of 17 points per game. The money line will get action where it is now.

what did you think of the Rams approach?

Interesting observation.

During the broadcast yesterday Jay Feely mentioned that John Brown told him the Bills offense is the most complicated he has played in. Previous head coaches for Brown include Bruce Arians and John Harbaugh, so that is an interesting observation by John. Its not clear to me that "most complicated" is a great thing. But my understanding is that NE's offense is considered very complicated, and that seems to have worked out over time.

Matchup is certainly critical. I am not sure that our defense (or any defense) can take away the strength of the Patriots offense, the quick hitting short passing game. The Patriots will score over 20 points almost certainly. It will take a much better game plan than the Bills have had so far to score more than 20 against the Pats defense.

Does anyone know Singletary's status for week 4?

Even if the Steelers with Ben were a tomato can it was a 30 point beat down. Bills have struggled to win against two of their three tomato cans.

Sometimes he is tackled from behind without a call. He is the ref's anti-Brady

Josh is no Marcus Mariotta, that is for sure. 0-2 Kyler Murray f'n rocks the house. Go NFL.com

no there is not. Mahomes is also exciting but in. A different way