Sammy Watkins' Rib

If anything, it comes down to coaching and defense I think. I'd like to do the same exercise I did with the Bills, for the Bengals post season vs. regular season performances. I'm guessing we would see a lot more green and blue for the Bengals post season defensive performances.

Or the opposite is needed. A year the Bills actually earn the 1 seed. Avoiding a tough opponent in the divisional round. Three straight years they have loss to the Chiefs, Bengals and Chiefs in the divisional. No shame in losing to those teams but you certainly don't want to go 0-3 against them and you would prefer to avoid that caliber of opponent until at least the conference championship game. Jags, two game regular season winning streak against us aside, I still would have liked our chances to advance to the conference championship game each of these last two seasons if the Bills had matched up with the Jags or Texans at Highmark. And as the stats in the OP show, the Bills are still a tremendous regular season team. I think we had a lot of negative things this past seeason as well that will kind of fall back to the mean in a positive way for us. I don't see Allen having as many turnovers he did this past season, and I don't see the team blowing close games to the likes of the Jets, Pats and Broncos in the way that they did.

Below are some of the raw stats of the rankings noted in the OP. Not a shock to anyone, our biggest factor in not having been able to get over the hump in any of the last 5 seasons has been the defense failing to live up to regular season performance standard. Key: Red = Poor performing difference greater than 3.0 Green= Positive performing difference greater than 3.0 Blue= Nuetral perfomring difference between +/- 3.0 (with the exception of 3rd down percentage, see note under 3rd down percentage) Defensive PPG: Year Reg. Season Def. PPG Post Season Elimination Game Difference 2019 16.2 22 +5.8 2020 23.4 38 +14.6 2021 17 42 +25 2022 17.9 27 +9.1 2023 18.3 27 +8.7 Offensive PPG: Year Offensive PPG Reg. Season Elimination Game Difference 2019 19.6 19 -.6 2020 31.3 24 -7.3 2021 28.4 36 +7.6 2022 28.4 10 -18.4 2023 26.5 24 -2.5 Defensive 1st Downs Per Game Given Up: Year OPP. Reg. Season 1st Down Per Game Elimination Game Difference 2019 18.4 19 +0.6 2020 21.9 29 +7.1 2021 16.7 30 +13.3 2022 19.6 30 +10.4 2023 18.4 21 +2.6 Offensive 1st Downs Per Game Gained: Year Reg. Season 1st Down Per Game Elimination Game Difference 2019 19.6 24 +4.4 2020 24.8 24 -0.8 2021 23.4 23 -0.4 2022 22.9 19 -3.9 2023 22.4 27 +4.6 Defensive Opponent 3rd Down Percentage: Year OPP Reg. Season 3rd % Elimination Game Difference** 2019 35.8% 46.2% +10.4% 2020 39.8% 60% +20.2% 2021 30.8% 61.5% +30.7% 2022 37.5% 60% +22.5% 2023 38.6% 20% * -18.6%* *KC only faced 5 third downs all game, going 1-5 on third down attempts. They had an explosive offense in this game. Offensive 3rd Down Percentage: Year Reg. Season 3rd % Elimination Game Difference** 2019 35.8% 52.4% +16.6% 2020 49.7% 35.7% -14.0% 2021 46.4% 42.9% -3.5% 2022 50.3% 41.7% -8.6% 2023 49.8% 50% +0.2% **Here, a neutral difference is anything between +/- 10%. There is greater variance in a stat like 3rd down percentage in a single game, so I believe it makes sense in this case to allow for a larger span for neutral performance. Simple tally of the above: Defense: 1 Green, 12 Red, 2 Blue Offense: 4 Green, 4 Red, 7 Blue

Anyone but Lamar.

That's obvious sarcasm from Chaos.

If this is the case, it was odd that the officiating crew had to huddle up for such a long time to make the call. Typically, when the officials huddle up it is because they have to determine between multiple officials both contact and where the QB was on the field or had the ball left the QB's hand or not. If it is as simple as you suggest, can't throw a shoulder into a passing crosser, regardless of if the ball is released yet or not, I don't see the need to discuss it in depth with the entire crew. It's an easy call to make with just one official if that is the case.

It's pretty crazy to me how much group think there appears to be in the MVP voting process. I really don't get it. I'm not saying recent past MVP's didn't deserve their hardware. They absolutely did. But look at the percentage share of votes they get. Last year with the new voting system, Mahomes got 98% of the vote share. It absolutely did not feel like Mahomes season was that decisively above all the other candidates last year. Even with the old MVP voting most winners had 80%+ of the votes. Really surprised we don't see more winners in the 60% range.

On the flip side, the Ravens defense has been great all season and certainly far healthier than our defense last week. KC could have trouble scoring over 20 points.

Burrow is already better than Allen in half the media's eyes because of one Super Bowl loss on his resume. If you don't want the media to gush over Lamar you better start hoping for a Ravens loss tomorrow. And Burrow doesn't even have two league MVP's like Lamar will.

Lamar will be the weakest MVP winner I can recall. It's not like the Ravens offense and Lamar are playing like 2019 Ravens and Lamar. And KC's defense has been very stout all year. It would absolutely not be shocking for the Ravens to be contained.

It was. My posts going into the season were about the team not going backwards. McDermott accomplished that barely. I said he had to have this team play in a competitive game in the divisional round after playing a noncompetitive game last year. Now midseason, like everyone else, when we were 6-6 I thought it was playoffs or bust for him. As long as he got the team to the playoffs I didn't care how the team performed, he would be back as coach in 2024. But going into next season. It's conference championship game or bust. He won't get a pass for going on a 6-game winning streak to end the regular season next year. And we actually need to advance next season, or he is out.

People that think you can't win playoff games with Lamar are clueless idiots. He's a fantastic player. That said, it's not all about Lamar this year like it was in 2019 when he won MVP. The Ravens defense is ridiculously good. Don't they keep saying they are the first defense ever to be #1 in three different major statistical categories? For selfish reasons of not wanting our guys passed up I'll root for the status quo of a Chiefs Super Bowl. There are enough idiots already who think Burrow is clearly better than Allen just based on one Super Bowl appearance. Never mind the fact that the Bengals defense to date has pretty much never layed an egg or let Burrow down in the postseason, even in the Bengal's losses they played well.

For some reason I am on the opposite side. At this point the Chiefs continuing to win does not move the needle for me either direction. It's just status quo. What I don't want is another team/QB outside of the Chiefs for the media to go crazy over. I'll be rooting for the Chiefs to beat the Ravens by 30.

The blown late leads are a reason for optimism in 2024. Just like coming off the 2021 season where the Bills were like 0-6 in one score games, and the Bills had a much better regular season record the following year in 2022, I expect a much better record in 2024 as our luck evens out. Two things will reverse themselves next season: 1. Won't surrender so many late leads 2. Allen won't turn the ball over nearly as much as he did this year. Not positive, but was this his worst year yet in terms of turnovers? Maybe not, because he did actually keep a good lid on the fumbles this past season.

3 out of our 4 losses are to the Chiefs dynasty. And two of those games could have gone either way. It’s not like we are losing to teams like the 7 seeded Dolphins and Colts even if both those games were close. That said, my gut tells me coming season will be the critical year for McDermott. It will be conference championship game appearance or bust for him.

Knox and Kincaid are going to drive a lot of two tight end sets. That means the majority of our snaps are something like Knox, Kincaid, Shakir, Diggs and Cook. We don't even have a ton of snaps consistently available for an outside #2 receiver. I think what the team needs is a one trick pony speedster on the outside. With the only real skill set being speed. Perhaps the Bills can find that player in free agency as the cost would be a little lower for a player with only one true skill set. A player with the skill set of Marquese Goodwin comes to mind. We need to find the younger version of Goodwin in today's NFL. Now, we could look long-term and try and find a replacement for Diggs in round 1 this year. I would certainly expect the duo of Shakir and Kincaid to hopefully be 1-2 in receptions on the team next year. I think that would point to further and greater development of both players.

Given these criteria I think Stroud would be at worst #3 on the list behind Allen and Mahomes. Might get some votes for having him ahead of Allen even.

It's Allen and Mahomes. At the top. Lamar and Burrow simply are not consistent enough in my eyes. Injuries galore with both of them. I'd probably put both of them in tier 2 by themselves. Tier 3 would be Justin Herbert by himself. No two QB's have been more consistently great since 2020 than Mahomes and Allen.

The third down play was the worst one IMO. We needed to pick up 3 yards at minimum on third down so we could go for it on 4th and 6. Kicking a fg to tie the game with 1:50 left over whatever was a death sentence in waiting. But at 4th and 9 you basically have no choice but to go FG.

Shakir has broken out in that way in the second half of the season for us.

I agree. Playing at home isn’t the key. The seeding is key which is why you want the 1 seed. Bills are actually a very good road team. The Bills have won the division 4 straight years. But because they were never the best team in the conference in any of those 4 seasons they never got the benefit of playing the worst remaining team in the divisional round. Now maybe they would just lose at home in the conference title game, but at this point that is a step up I would welcome.

He’s not? I thought he was decent. Good run support and he even came away with a nice pick to clinch the division.

Losing has become expected so I feel the same I guess. on to next year. A least we know we will win the division again. Hopefully we stop screwing around and eae r he 1 seed. That would at least likely give us a favorable road to the AFCCG.

Yeah that Allen fumble totally screwed us. Very costly. Honestly lost us the game . that failed fake punt where the Chiefs took over on our side of the field and proceeded to fumble the ball out of our end zone screwed us too.

I’d be super pissed if we had 4th and 6 or less and didn’t go for it. Kicking the Fg there gives you a very low chance of winning. It should be a legitimate consideration even on 4th and 9.