Sammy Watkins' Rib

Be hard to win then though when his team is 9-8 and the 7th seed.

Why are we assuming they go for 2? 49ers only scored 19 points in regulation. They score a TD on their first possession and now we are afraid they are going to score points every time they have the ball?

Unless the next team up is the Bengals. Let's face it, the Bills match up well with the Chiefs. We are 3-3 in the last six games. The Bills, IMO, are 0-3 in the last three games against the Bengals.

It's more coaching over talent IMO. Perhaps Mahomes is the ultimate difference if we are talking talent. But Spags and Reid are all time greats at their craft. The Bills don't have a bunch of bums on the roster. I'm not buying that Diggs suddenly fell off a cliff mid-way through the season when prior he was having a career year. The exact same thing happened in 2022. Obviously, his skills didn't diminish in 2022 if he started 2023 off with a bang. Something else is going on there. Roster wise, I think the Bills had a great secondary but got banged up. They had an elite LB core but by the end of the season they lost both starting LB's. The Bills o-line was certainly good enough and I think James Cook, even with his drops is a weapon that most teams would covet.

Spagnuolo is definitely a key to their success. Cheifs D just held the 49ers to 19 points in regulation and 22 total. Packers and Lions D's gave up 24 and 34 respectively. The Lions offense scored more than enough points to beat the 49ers but failed because they couldn't score more than 34 points. Which of course is an absurd bar. Bills for once need to be able to hold one of these final 8 teams 24 or less points.

Meh. That was 2019 Allen. Or in other words, 50% of today's Josh Allen.

A better comp is Peyton Manning’s Colts IMO. But Fire Chans point is still valid. Bolls have been extremely successful over the last 4 seasons. They’ve been outdated in the postseason by the Chiefs, Chiefs, Bengals and Chiefs. We haven’t been losing to the likes of the Colts, Ravens, Pats, Dolphins or Steelers. And until proven otherwise I fear the Bengals far more than the Chiefs. We’ve yet to have a competitive game against the Bengals in 2.25 tries.

it’s not unattainable though. Chiefs have only gotten it twice in the last four years. Bills should have gotten it at least once in the last four years but failed with some mid season struggles.

Disagree. A this point we all want to get back to conference title game. I mean you can’t make a Super Bowl if you can’t even get to the contrite game. Having the one seed gives a team a huge advantage in that. The Bills have been consistently great for four straight seasons now. But they don’t have a single 1 seed to show for it and the Chiefs only had the 1 seed in two out of those four seasons. As long as the Bills continue to finish 2nd or 3rd in the conference they will continue to face the 2nd or 3rd best team in the divisional round rather than getting say a Jags or Texans team. I certainly like our chances against the Jags or Texans compared to the Bengals and Chiefs.

The difference might literally be as simple as Steve Spagnuolo. The guy is really good. Shut down the 2007 Patriots offense when he was with the Giants. The Bills will never get to the Super Bowl if they are giving up 27+ points in every single divisional/conference championship game. It's too much to ask of the offense in consecutive weeks against the top four teams in the conference.

Can't agree with your take that the Bills don't have a Super Bowl caliber roster. I think only one team since 2020, four years, has been consistently better than the Bills. That's your Chiefs. If the standard is, are you better than the Chiefs? Then okay, yeah Bills don't have a Super Bowl roster. But that's a unfair standard. The Bills are right there. If anything, the Bills have a Bengals problem more than a Chiefs. The Bills have shown they can beat the Chiefs in the regular season consistently and the last two post season matchups have come down to the wire. Isn't McDuffied a nickel? Bills already have an all-pro nickel. Bills didn't just need a pass catcher last off-season. They needed to get better on the interior of the o-line. A bit disingenuous to suggest that the Bills whiffed on trading up in the first for Kincaid when they could have stayed pat or traded back and got Rice. I see nothing wrong at all with the Bills first two selections. Torrance so far looks like a plug and play player that will be here for 10 years. Bills also have a couple young pieces that look like stars in the making in Benard and Shakir from the draft the year before. Benford in the 6th round was a home run pick. Elam has struggled. Oddly enough he has two interceptions in the three career playoffs games he has taken snaps on defense.

Agreed. There is the old saying if you have two MVP candidates on the same team then neither can win it. People were using that argument against Purdy and CMC. And Tua and Hill throughout earlier parts of the season. Well, the same ought to be true for a QB with (nice numbers but not elite) supported by a defense that ranks #1 in three major statistical categories.

I would have liked to see that because I'm honestly not sure who would have won MVP in that case. Lamar still would have finished with the 1 seed in this scenario so it still could have been him just based on the history of it going to a QB on the 1 seed 90% of the time. In the above scenario I sure as heck hope it would not have been a 49-1 vote for whoever won. Maybe we actually would have seen more than 1 voter think for themself. I think he did dip below 1,000 actually. I want to say like 850 was the lowest I saw.

This was a something has to give year. Every single QB on that list, including Ryan who won it with the 2 seed, had elite stats. This year we were either going to break the mold of a 1 seed QB winning or break the mold of a QB with elite stats winning. If the elite stats QB would have won it would be going to Purdy, Dak or Allen all of whom finished with respectable 1 and 2 seeds. The most bizzare thing of all is Jackson getting 49 out of 50 first place votes. I would have hoped he would have won with more like 35 or 40 first place votes. How did nobody submit a single vote for CMC or Hill? Only one vote for Allen? None for Dak or Purdy? All 49 voters came to the same conclusion? The system seems broken. I'm just waiting for the Bills to finish 13-3 with the best record in the league and for somehow Allen to not win.

No way Purdy wins the MVP with Lamar's same numbers and team results in Baltimore. The dude had elite numbers in San Francisco and didn't sniff a single first place vote.

Disingenous? I don’t know think so. Even IF Allen has a shorter career, I expect him to play through the age of 30 at a high level. That is three more years, three more years at which the window is wide open at a minimum. And that is the absolute minimum IMO. There are fools in the media that thought we would miss the playoffs this year going into this season because they thought our window had closed. Agreed nothing is guaranteed. Bills have shown an inability to rise to the occasion of the defensive side of the ball against the better teams. Small sample size as those teams are just the Chiefs and Bengals but it’s still worrisome.

wow. That is a good find. Did not realize Brohm was that bad . he also only lasted two years in the NFl, both with the Bills. for all of Peterman’s issues, the guy is still in the league and has played for three different teams.

Agreed . Bills couldn’t stop shooting themselves in the foot in many games this year, lost their best defensive player early in the season. Had a high priced defensive player who will likely only be on the team for one more season basically be a no show for the entire year, found themselves at 6-6 and still ended up with the 2 seed. All signs point to the Bills being perennial contenders. If ever there was a year for the Bills to miss the playoffs or be one and done in the playoffs it would have been this year .

And most consecutive seasons with 40+ TD's

Agree. He carried the offense. But the Ravens defense was better than their offense this year. Some like to say an MVP cannot come from a team with two candidates. Making the case that neither Purdy or CMC should win. Well, the same should be said for a QB who leads an offense that is outshined by its defense.

Yeah, Stroud is a good one too. He deserves that mention in terms of value to their team. In terms of MVP though, now we are talking about a QB that had a QBR of 57. A full 13 points lower than Allen and 16 points lower than Purdy and Dak. That would be truly breaking the mold of QBR as a predictor of MVP's.

Agreed. Which is why this vote is a joke. 49-1 in favor of Jackson for first place votes??? For one of the worst statistical seasons, we've ever seen from an MVP winning QB who also happened to be supported by the best defense in the league? Completely insane. This year I don't think two QB's were asked to carry their teams more than Allen and Lamar week in and week out on the offensive side of the ball. The Bills defense was good. The Ravens defense was elite. So, I give Allen the edge in the "valuable to the team" concept of the award.

Probably at least two decades. Peyton won an MVP in 2008 with less than 30 total TD's but he also lead the league in QBR that year. Lamar was under 30 total TD's this year and not even close to the top 3 in QBR. 65 QBR to Allen's 70. Dak and Purdy both at 73. Cam won in 2015 with a lower QBR, 61 to Lamar's 65. But the Panthers had a truly elite season at 15-1 and Cam thew the second most TD's passes in the league and had the most total TD's by a wide margin. I'd say both of the above seasons were better than Lamar's. And that doesn't even take into account the Ravens defense being #1 in three major statistical categories.

Purdy stunk no doubt. I think the question is did Lamar shine? Or did his defense shine? Lamar shined the next week against the Dolphins with a perfect passer rating. Allen also shined against the Dolphins with a perfect passer rating, but that was in week 4 and long forgotten. If you told me after the Bills lost to the Eagles in OT and were 6-6 that they would win out, beat the Dolphins in primetime for the division title and 2 seed and that Allen would lead the league in total TD's by a wide margin I would have thought for sure he would win the MVP. He didn't have the greatest of games in the week 17 win against Miami but still, it felt like leading up to that game that even a 4 TD 0 turnover game would not have been enough to take it away from Lamar. I'll also add that when the Bills were 6-6, I want to say Lamar's QBR was really low by MVP standards. Pretty sure he was sub 60 at like 58 or 59 QBR. To Lamar's credit, he stepped up his game just enough in the final stretch of the season to get his QBR to a more respectable 65.

No QB had eye popping 50 TD's or 5,500 total yards this year. But if Allen's numbers were not eye popping this year than what in the heck were Lamar's? The saying used to be you had to lead your team to a top 2 seed. I guess we can throw that out. It's one seed or nothing now. Cut down on half the turnovers, and add two more wins, well yes, I think (hope actually because two more wins still has the Bills in the 2 seed) Allen would have won the MVP in a landslide.