HappyDays

I don't think a single penalty called on KC was soft. I think several penalties on the Bills were soft and that several legitimate penalties were not called on KC. Which penalty called on KC would you equate with the hold called on Morse?

Like any other team KC needs to draft and sign well to keep up with teams improving around them, and their acquisitions over the past couple years have just not worked out. Edwards-Helaire is not a 1st round talent. Thornhill is not getting into the starting lineup. They went all in on building an o-line and it is performing below expectations at this point. Jarran Reed has been a disappointment. Nick Bolton has been just fine. Their secondary was bad last year and they made no real attempt to improve it. They let Watkins walk and didn't try to replace him. Like the Bills last year they are a little too one-dimensional to make a run. Their whole team is just Mahomes throwing the ball to Hill and Kelce. If a team can stop that trio - which is easier said than done - there is nothing else they can lean on to win games.

I am still rooting for the Chargers because I want no chance of KC winning that division. I don't care what anyone says they are still the team that worries me the most in the playoffs. Force them to be a wildcard, or if the stars align knock them out of the playoffs entirely.

But they were not consistent this week. All of the ticky tacky penalties were on Buffalo. People have pointed out the numerous offensive holds that KC got away with. That is the suspicious part. The roughing the passer penalty on Clark was not tricky tacky. He put his whole weight on Allen and another defender intentionally fell onto Allen's legs when he was already on the ground.

It's crazy that we drafted two "raw" prospects that each took a year off of playing football, and both have arguably been the best player at their position on the roster early in their rookie seasons. And this was not supposed to be a strong draft class. Beane knocked it out of the park.

Diggs needed to sell it more. He should have theatrically ripped his arm away and looked at the ref like he can't believe the DB just held his arm down like that. It sounds silly but that kind of stuff works, especially for #1 WRs.

We are also getting incredibly good field position because the defense has been elite. Our average drive start is at the 35.93 yard line which is #1 in the league. The defense is making it very easy on the offense this year. Not that I'm complaining. My preferred metric is DVOA. That has our offense ranked 12th. Last year we were 5th. If this year's offense catches up to last year's offense without the defense missing a step we will be unbeatable. True but defenses know the Ravens want to run the football and sell out to stop it. Their rushing production is more impressive in that light. The Bills run offense is more opportunistic. If we tried to make our run game a focal point it wouldn't work. Defenses facing us respect our pass game and give us light boxes as a result. The crazy thing is last year we got light boxes and still couldn't capitalize. This year the run game has at least been competent.

I know the offense isn't statistically producing as well as last year but it feels a lot more playoff-ready. Last year our entire offense was Allen throwing the ball to WRs. That was it. It's insane that it went as well as it did and it was never going to be sustainable. In the AFCCG the WRs were banged up, the Chiefs DBs were able to get physical, and predictably our offense sputtered. This year we have Knox and Singletary and Moss getting involved. The run game is not elite but it is serviceable. Having a multidimensional offense led by a freak at QB is the kind of thing we dreamed about for 20 years.

This team is so good we ran a vanilla preseason-esque game plan against Houston just to confuse our next opponent and still blew them out 40-0. The 17 point spread should have been reserved for Kansas City.

The problem is QBR and passer rating are efficiency metrics. They don't care about volume. 5/5 for 80 yards and a TD is not as good a stat line as 35/45 for 390 yards and 3 TDs 1 INT, but the lower volume for the first stat line skews the efficiency. It's hard to create a QB statistic that mixes volume with efficiency. IMO Football Outsiders' DYAR is probably the best because it accounts for game situation and opponent, and gives the total value of the QB rather than the per-play value. In that metric Allen is ranked 13th as a passer and 6th as a rusher this year. He had two mediocre games to start the season and we're only 5 games in. If he continues his current level of play he'll find his way to the top of the statistical rankings. In general QB performance is so hard to rank because it's the most context driven position on the team and we don't know what the QB is asked to do on any given play.

I think part of it is that DCs are not really trying to sack him. Like Mahomes or Jackson you just have to keep him contained. If you rush straight at him upfield you end up like Washington in week 3 with a great pass rush win percentage but terrible defensive production.

The Bills stopped the Bills more than the Chiefs did. Outside of the Pittsburgh game that has been the story any time we don't move the ball this year. I thought Daboll was way too predictable in the 3rd quarter. I said in the game thread that I hope he is actually offered a head coaching job this offseason. Admittedly I was in an emotional state at that point, but I'm not entirely backing off. The offense has too much talent to stall out against a bad defense like that. Luckily Allen decided to take the game over because there was a moment there where I wondered if the offense was going to choke away an outstanding defensive performance. And it's hard to blame the execution on those drives. KC was just sniffing out our plays. Daboll needs to take RB screen passes out of the play book. It is bad execution across the board every time. If he wants to sprinkle in some flare passes or WR screens, fine. Just please stop trying RB screens. It is a waste of a down.

1) I wanted Ertz as bad as anyone on here. 2) I predicted Hollister would beat Knox out. 3) I said during the offseason I saw no sign of progress from Knox and that his upside was only hypothetical. I was wrong a million times over. He has been sensational. Not only is he catching the ball and blocking better, he is making himself available to Allen which to me was the biggest piece missing from this offense last year.

Also our offense actually moved the ball. That made it even harder for the Chiefs offense to stay patient. If you transplant last year's week 6 defense into this game we still win IMO, it just would have been closer. The blueprint to beating the Chiefs is force their offense to be patient while giving them every reason not to be.

The Chiefs really have not been a great team this year. All the advanced stats said we were better, and just looking at the rosters we are so much deeper across the board. The only reason we would have lost is if we psyched ourselves out and tried too hard to win the game instead of just playing and trusting our style against an inferior opponent. This game wasn't about slaying the dragon, it was about recognizing that we are the dragon and living up to that standard.

I'm being dead serious when I say I had completely forgotten Josh Gordon was active in this game until I read this post. It was a big pre-game storyline and ended up not mattering at all. I just looked it up, he played 9 snaps and had 1 catch on 1 target.

There are at least 5 QBs playing at a higher level than Mahomes this year. I won't lie, it is satisfying watching him fall off of his pedestal.

Having read the last few pages, I have a sampling of my favorite talking points. "Gruden was wrong but he said it in the ancient calendar year of 2014. He probably became a better person after Obama's 2nd term ended." "Who cares, everyone has said awful hateful things. Especially me. I've said so many awful hateful things. It just rolls off my tongue like nothing." "The direct boss of several black and gay people should be treated the same way as a rapper from the 90s."

This is another test for the Bills defense. Last year we struggled against multidimensional offenses. Titans have 3 elite talents catching and running the ball, and a QB just good enough to spread it around. If Jones and Brown both play their offense may be scarier than the Chiefs.

When a player is that wide open the ball is always underthrown. At that point you just want to make sure the ball gets to him. Not worth risking an overthrow. The simple truth is Diggs lost his footing or his awareness for a second. 95% of the time that's a walk in TD exactly as thrown. No big deal. Diggs is still a stud.

We build our d-line based on depth, not on top end talent. In a way that's how Beane has built the whole roster. But especially on the d-line. Look at Washington's starting front 4 compared to ours: Sweat - Allen - Payne - Young Hughes - Oliver - Lotulelei - Rousseau You would take any one of Washington's starting front 4 over his counterpart on the Bills, let alone the whole group. Yet our d-line is vastly outperforming them this year. That's a testament to the depth and coaching on the defensive side of the ball.

When Mahomes gets frustrated he complains to the refs. When Allen gets frustrated he hangs his **** over you on his way to the end zone.

And then he begrudgingly admits Allen is a good QB after throwing another TD. I don't know what Collinsworth has against him. Probably something to do with his investment in PFF.

I missed this during the game.

Allen Sanders Brown Morse Edmunds Rousseau Poyer Hyde McDermott/Frazier