Belgium_Bill

My kids got me a nr 58 Milano jersey for Christmas this year. Enough said, I rest my case.

In my timezone I won't watch, cannot bring myself to wasting an entire pre-workday night if it ain't the Bills. I'll just watch the "game in 40 minutes" version on GameDay (or DAZN as it is over here now) tomorrow morning without knowing the score. It wouldn't be the first superbowl that turns out totally different from what all the analysis has been throwing at us for 2 full weeks, so my prediction is that 49rs will win on the back of a great performance by their defence, the unlikely hero of the game will be Jauan Jennings, but since he's not famous enough CMC will get the MVP. See you all in the off-season, Go Bills!

YIHAA

We could do worse

Very mature clean game from Tannehill, playing for a contract

The best plays in this game so far are the punts 😏

I believe it's essential to consider the full body of work, spanning six years. I commend McDermott for his significant contributions in developing both the team and its culture. In that respect I view him as a top-10 coach, also in terms of defensive preparation. Despite the setbacks of losing key defensive players like Tre and Milano this year, McDermott has, for the most part, elevated our defense to an impressive level in recent weeks. However, there is another aspect that needs acknowledgment - the challenges in game management and in-game tactical adjustments. In this regard, McDermott falls squarely in the bottom half of NFL coaches. While I won't revisit the 13 seconds controversy, the overarching issue seems to be an inability to grasp the correct vibe in crucial moments. This often manifests in poorly timed (usually defensive) timeouts. One instance that particularly frustrated me was when he called a timeout just before the 59-yard Eagles field goal. Elliott got the time to have a few nice practice kicks on the sideline for crying out loud... Not feeling the moment IMO. McDermott undeniably excels from Monday to Saturday, showcasing his coaching prowess. However, the challenge lies in translating that success to game days. I can't help but think about the stark contrast in game instincts between McDermott and someone like Dan Campbell. If you want to climb Mount Everest, you assemble a team of sherpas to guide you to near the top, and then there's that one exceptional sherpa who leads you to the very summit. Perhaps McDermott is the top sherpa for getting the team to the last base camp, but the crucial test remains in reaching the summit.

It's a constant balance between being certain of the play-offs and still winning the division... Analysis is correct: the main team to root against is the Steelers, and the likeliest "unsuspected help" in the last two weeks has to come from the totally unpredictable Titans. Here's one for you all: which scenario would you prefer after the week 17 games, assuming we have beaten the Pats: 1/ Bills mathematically certain of play-offs but Phins beat Ravens so the division title is gone. 2/ Phins lose so Bills play in Miami for the division title but a loss could spell no play-offs alltogether. Where would you rather be next week ? Apart from right here right now of course....

Wouldn't it be a fun assignment to ban the word "if" from the board in the upcoming weeks... Leaving aside the resting the starters part from this thread, what I totally agree with is the underlying vibe of this message, that we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves too much and qualifying for the play-offs is by far the most important thing, seen as we were all but dead and burried after the Eagles disaster... The board has been full of pipe dreams of where we could end up by winning out, but frankly, after the many blows this season what I absolutely want to avoid is losing at Miami and be eliminated from the play-offs alltogether. And that scernario is still possible. Last nights win by the Ravens means that they may well have locked up the #1 with a win over Miami next week, leaving the door open for the Steelers who play their final game at Baltimore. It's a sad consequence of our losses this year, but it may come down to that, downward trending poor teams getting crappy easy wins in their last few games: Jaguars (home Carolina, @ Tennessee) is another example. As great as it would be to play for the division title in Miami, knowing that a loss there might be season ending would make it a mega bum squeezer. So my main prayer is to be guaranteed a play-off spot by next week.

Thanks, well, you learn something every day...

Is there an NFL rule I'm not aware off stating that Baltimore linesmen cannot be flagged for holding?

Trust me, I've just about had it after two defeats in recent years agains the Jags over here, they can stay in Buffalo 😉

From thousands of miles away I 100% agree with this.

I think that would be manageable to be honest, at least during the regular season. They could plan it in a way that the European based team plays stints of 3 consecutive away games then 3 at home, so as to limit constant intercontinental travel. As for the visiting teams there wouldn’t be much different from the way things are now, they just have to travel over once per season, preferably not waiting to leave until the Thursday I would suggest…🙄 Once it gets to possible play-off games things become far more complicated of course in terms of Europe based team. Anyway, the current trend of adding international games in different countries - now they are adding Spain it seems - is contradicting the strategy of a fixed home team in Europe, so I have no idea where the NFL is heading with this, apart from the fact that they are heading towards an ever fatter bank account of course. Unless of course the big plan is a European team without fixed home base, playing all over the place... One small remark for those here complaining about 9:30am games on a Sunday, spare us a thought please, every US evening game means a 2 am kick-off for me, often on a (very) early Monday morning at the start of a working week. So no, I don’t feel sorry for you watching NFL games while having your Sunday breakfast 😄

Of course this team is good enough, but it won't happen, not under this head coach anyway.

Very frustrating watch this, having to hold your breath for an additional 5 seconds after every positive play for us...

A lot of doom and gloom across the Atlantic… Bengals are (now, this month) a better team than the Bills, so losing this one away from home by 6 points was not that surprising to me. Too many parts of our team are only average or at best just above average, including our D since Milano went down. The most frustrating part for me is that, when it matters, we cannot run on teams. Yes there is the odd game where it works, but overall, the Bills “pure running game”, by which I mean the combo of OL/running back(s) excluding QB runs has been poor for the best part of a decade. Have we really had a RB in the past 10 years that was in let's say the top 10 of NFL RB’s ? Not in my opinion anyway. I’m still relatively optimistic about reaching the play-offs. I considered winning one of the 3 super tough road games in this stretch (Bengals, Eagles, Chiefs) would do it, provided we took care of business we should take care off (not a given I know). And I personally thought that of those 3 games, current form considered, Bengals was the toughest challenge. On the other hand one has to wonder what we could achieve in the play-offs, and if not making them would long term be a better thing for this team, in that it may lead to some more drastic changes. We seem to be stuck in some sort of limbo of hanging onto hope that this roster/coaches combo will lead us to the Superbowl, but even good teams need to insert some spark from time to time to. What that spark is to be I have my opinion just like anyone on this board, but I suppose that’s food for approximately 758 threads over the coming months…

Is it too late to blame this on jet lag as well ? 😏

Wembley is grass, albeit the modern type that has some artificial grass roots built into it.

Plain and simple: I was there. Just like I was there in 2015 when Manuel threw 17 interceptions in one quarter, matter of speaking...

It's been a few decades since I lived in the UK, not too far from Stonehenge in fact, so I wasn't aware of the new development of Plymouth International Airport. 😁

When I got my ticket, about 10 minutes ago, I didn't scan the entire stadium but a rough guess is that at that time there were max a few hundred seats (all single) left.

It's not sold out, I just got in of place 103000 in the queue. However, two seats next to eachother is not possible anymore, you just have got to pick single seats.

I started the queue at just over 100.000, seemed rather hopeless, but you never know, the system now predicts I have a good 10 minutes or so waiting ahead of me. Then again the system has failed me before... I will give an update if it's worth the wait.

Overreaction, and making predictions based on the last game, will always happen in these cases. In fact, just like we were the Superbowl favorite for most analysts after last season’s display in Kansas, you can be sure that nobody will put us in their top 5 for next year now. Maybe that’s a silver lining. After several decades of Bills fandom I feel very uncomfortable when being considered a favorite. Remember, 8 months ago the roster was so-called perfect and complete, the Bills could afford luxury picks in the draft, like a punter in round 6, and everybody applauded it. Now according to some the entire roster bar a few needs to be blown up. We lost 3 games in the regular season, all narrowly. Buffalo still is a good team, which doesn’t mean nothing can be improved. I would focus on the longer term issues rather than have a knee-jerk reaction. Sunday was a bad loss, one of the very few in the past 3 years where I felt fairly early on that we were truly being outplayed and didn’t have any answers. The other two were the Colts last season, and the home game to the Chiefs the year before. Common denominator of those 3 losses: the opposition ran all over us. Second main issue I have is with Josh. Well, not so much with him as with his surroundings. JA is a stallion, he can do things no other QB can in the league, but he doesn’t have the level of self-control of some other – admittedly more boring (Brady) – QB’s. I vividly remember a scene from a game I think in his second year when Daboll was still on the sideline, and after a bonehead decision by Josh, Daboll gave him a right earful, literally almost as I think he shouted down his ear from like one inch removed. Allen has grown in stature of course and I don’t suggest he is treated like a bad child, but he would IMHO benefit from a real strategic mentor as OC, who can let him be himself while setting the boundaries, and who has mental authority over him. I don’t believe Dorsey is an awful OC, but let’s be honest he is Josh’s mate who he lobbied for, it’s pretty obvious who has the mental authority in that relationship. Thirdly, more of a standard remark, draft better. It hasn’t been spectacular in recent years, certainly not in the first few rounds. The rope of the salary cap is getting much firmer round the neck now, so this is more important than ever for future years. Apart from that you can make hundreds of more changes but being realistic, we all know McD is staying and I think Frazier will do as well. Oh and one last random thought I had on Sunday: I know wizard Belichick started the trend and after that all analytics proved him right but F**¨that. If you play the team that has the best record in opening drives of the league and you win the toss, don’t defer. This game was over by the time we played our 4th snap. The cynic in me says it should at least have been our 7th. Despite all this, for old times sake: Go Bills !