HappyDays

Quentin Johnston is complete garbage. Not a great throw but fight for the ball.

He spent the offseason doing the podcast circuit crowing about how great he is. Houston is a classic case of a team that wrote their own ticket way too early, starting with that awful trade for a one year rental of a WR on the decline.

LMAO what is he doing?

That was such a bad throw he even overthrew the CB

As expected

I've given the Bills a lot of crap for what they've put around Allen but Herbert certainly has it worse. It's way too hard to move the ball consistently when your best WR is a small white guy that only plays in the slot

Houston for my money is the most unlikeable team in the playoffs. Hoping to see them get blown out.

What happened to Stroud this year. It is like he and Bryce Young have switched bodies

I wouldn't say they stepped up. An overthrow, a poor 3rd and 1 play call, and a brutal drop have stalled out the Chargers. Can't live with that many mistakes in just the 1st quarter of a playoff game. If they play the Chiefs next week those mistakes will be what kills their chances.

Maybe LA will actually make it a point to get Herbert some real pass catchers next year.

Herbert looking extremely sharp early on

It's obvious if Josh doesn't win it this year he never will. Before the season the narrative from most analysts was that the Bills weren't even favorites for their own division because they lost too many players, most notably Diggs and Davis. Imagine back then if you had told any of those analysts we would finish as a top 2 seed only losing 3 real games, we would beat the #1 seed in both conferences, and that we would average over 30 PPG with Allen having the lowest turnovers of his career and still 40+ TDs. Every single one of those analysts would have said if that happens Allen is definitely going to be the MVP, no question. That was the established narrative. Well here we are and his performance if anything was even more impressive than what that summary would have you believe, and still he is no longer the favorite. It's practically impossible for him to do anything more impressive than what he did this year, and unless our coaching and/or talent evaluation drastically improves in the near future it's practically impossible for us to be the #1 seed in the AFC. So it's this year or never for Allen IMO. And I really just don't understand why.

I don't know. It could 100% be confirmation bias on my part because I really do want Allen to win and cement his legacy, but even before the announcement today I sincerely had thought that Lamar as all-pro/Allen as MVP was a fairly likely result. I'd heard it floated by a couple other analysts too. It starts by acknowledging that this MVP race in particular has become very very hostile. There was a viral thread on Twitter where a Ravens fan basically threatened to find Dan Orlovsky when he was in Baltimore and hurt him. Sure it was almost certainly just a joke but it crossed a line and you never know in this day and age. And then there are several analysts trying to make the whole thing into a racial divide. The conversation has just gotten terrible and there's no way that isn't having at least some effect on the voters. So if you're a voter who wants to give Allen MVP but you don't want to be threatened or accused of racial bias, the easy answer is to vote Lamar as 1st team all-pro to give yourself plausible deniability. In that scenario you basically plant yourself on the fence and no one can accuse you of bias. This all sounds insane as I'm typing it out but I think there's some truth to what I'm saying. I would still bet on Allen to win MVP. The all-pro/MVP split would be unprecedented in recent history but this is an unprecedented MVP race in general for a number of reasons.

I don't think the race is over yet. Here's what will happen - everyone that voted Allen 1st team all-pro will also vote him MVP. But some of the Lamar 1st team all-pro voters will give Allen the MVP. Their logic will be that Lamar was the best QB (based on volume stats) but Allen was the most valuable QB (based on narrative and team record). The final result will come down to how many of Lamar's 30 voters fall in that bucket. If even just 10 of them do, Allen will win. And to be honest that's what I think will happen.

So I guess the hope is that AP voters decided to split the baby by giving All-Pro to Lamar but MVP to Josh. Kind of an admission through the voting process that they both deserved it but Josh slightly edged him out for the more prestigious award. That's the hope anyways.

Good find. There is some levelheaded skepticism in there but also some really embarrassing takes. It's funny in hindsight because in that game Allen had Cody Ford, Devin Singletary, and Duke Williams as primary starters. He had barely learned the position yet and he had backups or worse on the field with him.

I've been somewhat unimpressed with his understanding of leverage and making himself available to his QB. Which is a shame because I actually loved him as a draft prospect specifically because he appeared to have the right cerebral traits. Kelce is possibly the GOAT not just because of his physical traits but because he can read defenses as well as an elite QB. I've seen too many plays this year where Allen is expecting Kincaid to be somewhere or adjust his route and it just doesn't happen. And I'd guess that's why his role has mainly been limited to quick passes where he doesn't have to think and can just use his natural athleticism to create YAC. I could see him breaking out next year if the game has slowed down for him.

Bills 31 Broncos 20 I really like this matchup for us. It was the best of the possible wildcard matchups IMO. On offense Denver can't run the ball very well and they don't have a lot of playmaking talent in general. It's a middling supporting cast led by a rookie QB coming to Orchard Park for his first ever playoff game. These are the kinds of matchups where our defense tends to stack negative plays. On defense Denver's two biggest strengths are somewhat neutralized by what we do well. They have a shutdown CB who can singlehandedly take a WR out of the game, but we don't rely on one WR. They have a great pass rush but we have very good pass protection and a QB that negates a good pass rush better than any QB in history. The leash is off Allen to run around and stiff arm LBs as he sees fit. I just can't see our offense scoring less than 30 under those circumstances, even against a great defense like Denver. So if we keep them below 30 we win.

They'll have a hard time selling any candidate other than Ben Johnson (or Vrabel if he wasn't already practically the Pats coach), and I just don't see that match happening at this point. They'd sell Monken as the coach that turned Lamar Jackson into a perennial MVP candidate supported by an elite run game. I could see Liam Coen as another option, sold to the fans as the coach that turned Mayfield's career around.

Pats - Mike Vrabel, done deal. Jets - Steve Spagnuolo. They reportedly requested to interview him today and it feels like a move Woody Johnson would make. Being in the NY market he saw firsthand what Spagnuolo did in 2007. And I can see Woody getting taken in by his "championship DNA". No one really wants the job anyways and they need a bridge head coach more than he needs a long term answer. I just can't bring myself to seriously predict Rex Ryan. (Also I'll admit some wishful thinking on my part - I would love to see KC lose Spagnuolo) Bears - Todd Monken. I feel like you have to make one out of left field prediction if you want to be realistic because there's always one every cycle. The Bears reportedly put in a request to interview Monken so I have some basis for this prediction. I think they will want to get an offensive head coach after the Eberflus experiment failed. I know Ben Johnson is the hot name here but I think he's going to sit this cycle out yet again... Chicago doesn't seem like a very attractive job because Caleb Williams was pretty bad this year and showed little to no growth over the course of the season, and they're in a brutal division. Monken feels like the perfect "no one else will really consider me so I'll take any of the 32 jobs I can get," and I could see Chicago's ownership convincing themselves Monken can get Caleb Williams headed in the right direction after what he's done in Baltimore. Saints - Aaron Glenn. This is a tough one. I don't think Brady wants this job or else I'd predict him. The situation here is too messy. The Saints need what Buffalo needed when they hired McDermott - a leader of men who they'll be patient with and allow him to transform the culture. I think Glenn fits that bill given everything I've heard about him out of Detroit. Jaguars - Liam Cohen. For the same logic @GunnerBill used, I have nothing to add. Again I almost want to say Joe Brady but the more I think about it the more I think he is one cycle away from getting a job. One more year coaching an elite offense led by Josh Allen and he'll have his pick of the litter. Raiders - Brian Flores. Again with the same logic Gunner used. I can't find another candidate that makes sense.

Anthony Barr indirectly became a Buffalo sports legend.

Hey to be fair, that injury report was for the divisional round. So there's still time for the worst case scenario to unfold! This post is brought to you by the worst person you know.

And that is 100% fair. As someone that supported the Coleman pick even before we made it I'm not going to bury my head in the sand and pretend his rookie season was anything more than what it was. He needs to progress or else he'll never be more than a complementary piece, kind of like what Mack Hollins was for us this year, and that result isn't worth a high 2nd round pick. The frustrating thing for me is the line appeared to be trending way up in the Tennessee-Seattle games. I thought he had figured it out and was about to become a centerpiece of the offense. Instead he had a bad game against Miami, then got injured, and when he came back from injury he was back to his pre-Tennessee form and plateaued from there. So that's my one lingering disappointment, that he didn't end the season notably better than he started. Pending his performance in the playoffs, of course.

I mean any offense is better when it spreads the ball around and doesn't rely on one guy, everybody agrees with that. That doesn't take away from how middling our pass catchers have been though. Re-posting from the MVP thread: Allen is making this group much much MUCH more than the other way around. It is a perfectly mediocre group of weapons led by an all-time great QB and a very good OL.